ELEPHANT TUSKS 415 



and the lighter 137J lbs., making 289| lbs. for the pair. 

 A queer incident immediately succeeded the fall of this 

 ponderous animal. The hunter had been in pursuit of 

 three elephants, and one of them turned back quickly on 

 seeing his companion fall, rushed toward him and gave 

 him a violent thrust, wounding him and injuring the 

 body very seriously, one of the tusks deeply penetrating 

 the abdomen. Whether this was done in anger or to induce 

 the fallen animal to get up and continue its flight is uncer- 

 tain, but seeing that these energetic measures were in- 

 effectual, the still unharmed elephant quickly resumed its 

 mad career.* 



A fine pair of tusks belongs to Lieut. Alexander H. 

 Wheeler, having been secured from an elephant he shot at 

 Mohoroni, British East Africa. One of the tusks measured 

 7 ft. I in. in length and weighed 81 lbs., the other one being 

 exactly 7_ ft. long and weighing 79 lbs.; in each case the 

 circumference is ISJ in. Lieut. Wheeler is at the front in 

 the Dardanelles with the British expeditionary force as 

 this book goes to press, and with the French Army is another 

 noted elephant hunter, Mr. W. Sewall. The latter has 

 hunted over the greater part of equatorial Africa since 

 1905, with his headquarters in British East Africa. In all 

 he has shot between 30 and 40 elephants. The Harvard 

 Club in New York City has as a trophy the head of one of 

 the elephants brought down by Mr. Sewall, the slender, 

 gracefully curved tusks being of singular beauty, although 

 they weigh not more than 80 lbs apiece. The best pair 

 secured by this hunter weighed 124 lbs. and 129 lbs. re- 

 spectively, a joint weight of 253 lbs. They were the 

 spoils of an elephant shot in the Belgian Congo. Mr. 

 Gerrit Forbes, of Boston, can claim an even larger elephant 

 bag, for he has killed 48 elephants in the years between 1907 



* James Sutherland, "The Adventures of an Elephant Hunter," London, 1912, p. 104. 



