144 MAMMALIA. ' [Chap. IV. 
elephant shooting in South Africa. The practice in 
Ceylon is to aim invariably at the head, and the sportsman 
finds his safety to consist in boldly facing the animal, 
advancing to within fifteen paces, and lodging a bullet, 
either in the temple or in the hollow over the eye, or in 
a well-known spot immediately above the trunk, where 
the weaker structure of the skull affords an easy access 
to the brain. 1 The region of the ear is also a fatal spot, 
and often resorted to, — the places I have mentioned in 
the front of the head being only accessible when the 
animal is "charging." Professor Haekison, in his 
communication to the Eoyal Irish Academy on the 
Anatomy of the Elephant, has rendered an intelligible 
explanation of this in the following passage descriptive 
of the cranium : — "it exhibits two remarkable facts : 
first, the small space occupied by the brain ; and, 
secondly, the beautiful and curious structure of the bones 
of the head. The two tables of all these bones, except 
the occipital, are separated by rows of large cells, some 
from four to five inches in length, others only small, 
irregular, and honey-comb-like: — these all commu- 
nicate with each other, and, through the frontal sinuses, 
with the cavity of the nose, and also with the tympanum 
or drum of each ear; consequently, as in some birds, 
these cells are filled with air, and thus while the skull 
attains a great size in order to afford an extensive surface 
1 The vulnerability of the ele- standing the comparative facility 
phant in this region of the head of access to the brain afforded at 
was known to the ancients, and this spot, an ordinary leaden bul- 
Pmny, describing a combat of ele- let is not eertain to penetrate, and 
phants in the amphitheatre at frequently becomes flattened. The 
Eome, says, that one was slain by hunters, to counteract this, are 
a single blow, "pilum sub oculo accustomed to harden the ball, by 
adactum, in vitalia capitis vene- the introduction of a small portion 
rat" (Lib. viii. c. 7.) Notwith- of type-metal along with the lead. 
