46 Wild Life in Central Africa. 



times, as I have the kind permission of the proprietor and 

 editor of that journal to do so. Here is one about long 

 range shooting at game which may be of interest : 



LONG SHOTS AT BIG GAME. 



SIR, In your issue of July 9 I notice a letter by " Canities Adest " entitled 

 41 Long Shots at Stags." I have also seen other letters on the same subject, 

 one by Mr. Dunbar-Brunton referring to some long shots he made at game in 

 North-East Rhodesia. I have had considerable experience of big-game 

 shooting in Nyasaland and Northern Rhodesia, and I have seldom found it 

 necessary to shoot at a greater range than about 200 yards, and most shots 

 will be taken at 100 or 150 yards. 



I do not consider it sportsmanlike for a man to make a practice of 

 shooting at game over 150 yards, and if he cannot get to within that 

 distance he cannot be a good hunter. Even on the big plains (called 

 dambos here) there is usually enough covert to enable one to get a reason- 

 ably close shot, and only on a very few occasions have I found it necessary 

 to shoot at game over 200 yards off. Of course, some men might be able to 

 kill a buck better at 300 yards than another man would at 100 yards, and 

 with modern rifles, such as the '280 Ross, '256 Mannlicher, or '275 Mauser, 

 a matter of fifty yards or so may not make so much difference when a man 

 is blessed with good eyesight, and when the game is standing in the open. 

 In the old days in Southern Africa the Boers used to fire at springboks at 

 distances over 500 yards, and often kill them, but I believe that for one 

 buck they killed they missed or wounded many. A springbok is about the 

 size of an impala, and the heart of the latter measures 5in. long by 3fin. 

 broad, so it would need a remarkably good shot to hit it at a distance of 

 over 150 yards. The lungs are larger, but under the ordinary conditions of 

 shooting in this country it is unsportsmanlike, I consider, to shoot at a buck 

 over 150 yards, unless meat is urgently required or the beast has been 

 wounded by a previous shot. Many men who know they could not hit a 

 ift. "bull" at 300 or 400 yards think nothing of pumping a magazine full 

 of cartridges at a buck at that distance, whether it is standing or running. 



When a man has been walking for some distance in a hot tropical sun, 

 and is perhaps shaky with fever or exertion, he cannot expect to shoot as 

 well as he would at a gunmaker's range on a cool day at home. It is all 

 very well to say that rifles are so accurate and have such a flat trajectory 

 nowadays that it is easy to kill game at 300 and 400 yards ; but the question 

 of eyesight comes in. Any good modern rifle with a velocity of 2OOoft. per 

 second is capable of killing an animal a mile off; but that is no reason why 

 animals should be shot at when it is impossible to locate their vital organs 

 or to discern the true angle at which they are standing. 



The ignorance displayed by some men who ought to know better is 

 amazing. For instance, men will fire at hippos from a river steamer in 

 motion and expect to put a bullet into a circle of about 5in., which is, 

 roughly, the size of a hippo's brain. For one hippo that they kill by a fluke 

 they will wound over twenty. The wounded animals retire into the weeds 



