60 Wild Life in Central Africa. 



is a common act when an elephant is shot in the lungs, and 

 I have seen them do it several times. It is evidently 

 caused by the suffusion of blood in the lungs which gets 

 coagulated and causes suffocation. 



When an elephant is killed, more particularly a large old 

 bull, it is usual to find native bullets in his carcass ; 

 sometimes these are round and at other times oblong, and 

 they are simply pieces of iron made in the roughest 

 way by being hammered with stones. 



It is not so common to find European bullets, although 

 it is not unusual to do so. The large nickel-covered 

 projectile was either a '450, "475, or "500, but it had got 

 so misshapen that it was difficult to recognise its bore. 

 The sportsman who fired it had evidently hit a tree, which 

 reduced the velocity of the projectile and flattened it, so 

 that it had no penetration in the hard bone of the skull. 



It is a memorable sight to see such a large animal as an 

 elephant die, and they sometimes die hard and make 

 stupendous efforts to rise when they get on their knees. 

 They also groan and sometimes scream with pain, and it 

 is impossible to witness such a sight without feeling great 

 pity for the suffering giant. Puny man is no longer a 

 weakling compared to such large creatures when he is 

 armed with a good modern rifle and knows how to use it 

 efficiently. 



Not very far from my dead elephant was the dried-up 

 skull of a large bull shot by an officer who once lived 

 at Fort Manning, and Kamwendo told me the tusks 

 were as heavy as the one I had just got. I measured 

 the depth of the brain cavity and found it to be exactly a 

 foot. In my " Nyasaland for the Hunter and Settler" I 

 gave two sketches of the cavity in an elephant's head, one 

 sketch being by my friend Mr. Martin Ryan, and the other 

 by myself. It shows how small a mark it is, and also how 

 difficult a one, as it is buried in the centre of a mass of bone 

 and flesh. 



The feet of my elephant measured 56in., and he was a 

 tall, large-bodied animal, but, owing to the kneeling position 



