202 BIG GAME SHOOTING 
If a well-used water-hole could be found where game was 
in sufficient quantities to attract lions, it would be advisable 
to watch it on the chance of getting a shot at a lion—a 
chance which may not be offered for months by daylight, though 
lions may be heard roaring near the camp night after night. 
And now to deal with the last feature of a stalk—the shot. 
It may be taken as a general rule that all big game should be 
shot behind the shoulder. 
Roughly speaking, a bullet placed in the lateral centre of 
the body, or a trifle below the centre, and a fewinches behind ~ 
the shoulder in a perpendicular line with the back of the foreleg, ; 
will kill anything, provided, of course, the bullet has sufficient — 
penetration ; as, even if the heart is not touched, the lungs, 
which are a much larger mark, and almost equally vital, 
certainly will be. The chest shot when the beast is facing the 
sportsman is equally good. With elephants, however, when at 
close quarters, which would be either in long grass or thick 
bush, the head shot is preferable, as a bullet in the brain will 
be instantly fatal, and the risk of a charge under conditions 
unfavourable to the stalker will be avoided. The danger of 
a charge in such circumstances, more especially on a calm — 
day, is greatly increased by the dense cloud of smoke caused 
by the explosion of ten or twelve drachms of powder, which 7 
hangs in the air and prevents the stalker from seeing the result 7 
of his shot. @ 
With all one’s care to avoid the infliction of needless pain, — 
cases occur from time to time in every sportsman’s experience é 
in which it seems almost impossible to despatch a mortally © 
wounded beast with anything except a shot in the brain or in d 
the vertebrae of the neck. The wounded animal appears in 7 
these cases quite impervious to all sense of pain, being appar- — 
ently in a state of semi-consciousness after the first shot, the — 
shock of each subsequent shot seeming to have no further — 
effect upon its nervous system, yet in nineteen cases out’ of — 
twenty a beast hit in the same spot and at the same angle - 
would die almost immediately. — 
