WORK AND SPORT IN THE N.W.P. 73 
waiting on the other side is startling. The invisi- 
bility of so large an animal is due somewhat to the 
dust and mud plastered on their bodies, and this 
protection is in the hot weather often supplemented 
by covering the head with dry grass. An 8-bore 
rifle or paradox gun with a heavy charge is a suit- 
able weapon for surprise visits from elephants ; but 
if a steady shot at a longer distance is possible, any 
of the high-velocity rifles of the present day, with 
nickel - covered bullets, is preferable. The old- 
fashioned steel-capped bullets appear to be useless. 
I once watched Mr. Greig, then Conservator of 
Forests in the North-Western Provinces, place three 
of these bullets behind the shoulders of a tusker at 
twenty-five yards’ distance. He then followed up 
and fired four more shots into his head; but the 
elephant went off at his best speed, and my trackers, 
on their return in three days, reported him to be 
twenty miles away, eating bamboo, and his wounds 
stopped with clay. Mr. Osmaston, also a noted 
sportsman in the Forest Department, has killed two 
or three tuskers, in particular a rogue elephant that 
had been proclaimed ; and he, I believe, at least on 
one occasion, used a 12-bore rifle at close quarters. 
But the long bullet of the old Martini-Henry military 
rifle will easily reach an elephant’s brain, and perhaps 
the best weapon for all emergencies would be the 
high-velocity rifle of the same or somewhat smaller 
bore. 
The male elephant possesses formidable weapons 
—in his trunk, for the demolition of small, light 
objects such as a man; in his fore-feet, which he uses 
with force and accuracy against a tiger, pig, or bear; 
