264 HOOFED ANIMALS 



caught him between the ribs. At the same time the animal 

 was pounding his chest with the thick part of its trunk, 

 crushing in his already wounded ribs. Fortunately the 

 beast, which was a female, either thought he was dead, or 

 she was anxious to return to her calf, and she left him to 

 recover from as narrow an escape as can well be con- 

 ceived. 



Mr. Bryden, who speaks out of the fulness of personal 

 knowledge, says: 'The charge of an Elephant is, as even 

 the most cool and self-reliant hunter is fain to confess, one 

 of the most nerve-shaking experiences that any man can 

 hope to go through. With ears spread out at right angles, 

 like a pair of sails, screaming like a locomotive, the great 

 pachyderm comes down upon his disturber at thirty miles 

 an hour.' Fortunately the cool, resourceful hunter knows 

 that a well-directed bullet will cause the blundering beast to 

 swerve out of its path; and thus the whirlwind of flesh is 

 avoided by, perhaps, only a few inches. 



A few words may be given to the consideration of the 

 future of the African Elephant, which in all ages has been 

 hunted for the sake of its ivory. The average weight of 

 cow teeth is about twenty-four pounds a pair, though in 

 exceptional cases they may weigh from twenty-four to thirty 

 pounds each. The finest ivories are obtained in Central 

 and East Equatorial Africa, where the male tusks average 

 about a hundred and fifteen pounds apiece. Exceptional 

 specimens range much bigger; for example, Sir Edmund 

 Loder possesses a fine tusk that measures 9 feet 5 inches 

 over the curve and weighs 184 Ibs. Probably the finest 

 tusks known came from East Africa, measuring 10 feet 

 2 inches and 10 feet 4 inches, with a weight of 224 Ibs. and 

 235 Ibs. respectively. They were sold to a museum in the 

 United States for -1,000. 



Mr. Selous, the modern Nimrod without compare, shot 

 seventy-eight Elephants in the years 1873-75, when he was 

 engaged in ivory-hunting and the capture of natural history 

 specimens. Upon one occasion he formed one of a party 

 of four who shot twenty-one Elephants in a day, and once 

 three of the same men killed nineteen out of a herd of 

 twenty-one. Huge bags as these were, they could not 



