220 LARGE GAME. chap. iv. 



of its being watched, they are able to go several days 

 without a fresh supply. It is usually the largest animals 

 who act as leaders on these occasions, and then sagacity 

 often induces them first to go to leeward of the spot before 

 approaching it, and therefore, after the first few nights, 

 the watcher is seldom successful. 



There are but two spots in these large animals where 

 a bullet may be expected to be fatal ; namely, behind the 

 ear in the head, and behind the flap of the ear in the 

 shoulder and breast. When a limb is broken the animal 

 is practically hors de combat, though, owing to the 

 porous nature of the bones, and the absence of marrow, 

 a bullet will only pierce, not smash them, but when thus 

 perforated they will give way when used to support its 

 great weight. In this point they resemble the rhinoceros 

 and hippopotamus. A case which was related to me by 

 my late friend Mr. Leslie illustrates that in many things 

 elephant-shooting resembles that of other large game, 

 especially in the uncertainty of a bullet, however well 

 aimed, killing, and in the peculiar tenacity of life they 

 display. On the same day he shot two elephants in Zulu- 

 land, one falling to a single ball, while the other took 

 either thirty-five or thirty-seven, I forget which, to say 

 nothing of some hundreds of spears, before it was killed, 

 the last ten or so of them being fired at the animal stand- 

 ing like a rock in the open, not thirty yards off, never 

 flinching or even shuddering when the balls struck it, 

 until at last it fell down stone dead. 



I cannot leave this subject without adding my pro- 

 test against the wanton and wasteful wholesale destruc- 

 tion of these animals that has now been going on for so 



