53 8 UNGULATES. 



shots, which they perhaps mistake for thunder. When first starting, they make off 

 at a rapid pace, but soon settle down to a steady walk. 



In shooting single tuskers, it is advisable that the sportsmen should be at his 

 work betimes, as in the case of bulls belonging to a herd they usually rejoin their 

 companions by eight or nine in the morning. When such solitary animals are 

 feeding, the noise they make allows of a close approach without much risk of 

 discovery. Bulls that are permanently solitary usually rest at about ten o'clock, 

 and after that time may be found asleep, either lying down, or resting against the 

 trunk of a tree. When first disturbed, one of these solitary tuskers makes off with 

 a tremendous rush, but soon subsides into a walk, when he proceeds so quietly that 

 he may disappear without the sportsman being in the least aware of it. 



The following account of the death of a tusker, by Sanderson, gives some idea 

 of the danger often encountered in this kind of sport. The narrator writes, that 

 having ascertained that the herd comprised about fifty head, " a shrill trumpeting 

 and crashing of bamboos about two hundred yards to our left broke the stillness, 

 and from the noise we knew it was a tusker-fight. We ran towards the place 

 where the sounds of combat were increasing every moment : a deep ravine at last 

 only separated us from the combatants, and we could see the tops of the bamboos 

 bowing as the monsters bore each other backwards and forwards with a crashing 

 noise in their tremendous struggles. As we ran along the bank of the nalla to find 

 a crossing, one elephant uttered a deep roar of pain, and crossed the nalla some 

 forty yards in advance of us, to our side. Here he commenced to destroy a bamboo- 

 clump (the bamboos in these hills have a very large hollow, and are weak and 

 comparatively worthless) in sheer fury, grumbling deeply the while with rage and 

 pain. Blood was streaming from a deep stab in his left side, high up. He was a 

 very large elephant, with long and fairly thick tusks, and with much white about 

 the forehead ; the left tusk was some inches shorter than the right. The opponent 

 of this Goliath must have been a monster indeed to have worsted him. An 

 elephant-fight, if the combatants are well matched, frequently lasts for a day or 

 more, a round being fought every now and then. The beaten elephant retreats 

 temporarily, followed leisurely by the other, until by mutual consent they meet 

 again. The more powerful elephant occasionally keeps his foe in view till he 

 perhaps kills him ; otherwise, the beaten elephant betakes himself off for good on 

 finding he has the worst of it. Tails are frequently bitten off in these encounters. 

 This mutilation is common amongst rogue-elephants, and amongst the females in a 

 herd ; in the latter case it is generally the result of rivalry amongst themselves. 

 The wounded tusker was evidently the temporarily-beaten combatant of the occa- 

 sion, and I have seldom seen such a picture of power and rage as he presented, 

 mowing the bamboos down with trunk and tusks, and bearing the thickest part 

 over with his fore-feet. Suddenly his whole demeanour changed. He backed from 

 the clump and stood like a statue. Not a sound broke the sudden stillness for an 

 instant. His antagonist was silent, wherever he was. Now the tip of his trunk 

 came slowly round in our direction, and I saw that we were discovered to his fine 

 sense of smell. We had been standing silently behind a thin bamboo-clump, 

 watching him, and when I first saw that he had winded us, I imagined he might 

 take himself off. But his frenzy quite overcame all fear for the moment ; forward 



