THE GUN AT HOME AND ABROAD 
Why not put a limit on the number of lions a sportsman may kill in the 
unsettled districts ?” 
To this expression of a sportsman’s opinion the editor of the “ East 
African Standard ” appended the following note: “ We do not agree with 
the views of ‘ Sportsman.* We regard Mr Rainey and his pack of lion- 
hunting dogs as benefactors. Lions are a curse in any struggling country. 
In the old days the ordinary big -game sportsman was very welcome; 
to-day he is a nuisance. He only upsets the labour market, without giving 
an adequate return.” There are two ways of looking at most things, and 
I think these two very divergent views of the sportsman and the settler 
regarding the wholesale killing of lions with the help of large packs of 
dogs distinctly interesting and worth recording. 
A sportsman proceeding to Africa to hunt big game to-day, as a rule, 
takes with him a long-range, small-bore magazine rifle and a powerful 
double cordite rifle of *450 or *500 bore. With his small-bore rifle he 
shoots every day and becomes thoroughly accustomed to it; but as the law 
only allows him to shoot two elephants, two buffaloes, and one rhinoceros 
in British East Africa, he will only use his heavy double rifle very 
occasionally, and perhaps will never have fired a shot with it at all when 
he first meets with lions. Now, a lion is a soft-skinned animal, and if hit 
in a vital spot, can easily be killed with any of the many very excellent 
small-bore, high-velocity rifles procurable at the present day. Therefore, 
I think that, should lions be suddenly encountered, it is advisable to take 
the first shot with the small-bore rifle one has been using every day, and 
to which one is well accustomed, rather than to exchange it for the heavy 
double with which one has hardly fired a shot. It is certainly better to hit 
a lion somewhere about the right place with a bullet from a small-bore 
rifle than to hit him too high or too low, or too far back with a heavier 
projectile. Once, however, a lion has been wounded, and has to be followed 
into thick cover, then a heavy double rifle has great advantages over a 
small-bore magazine rifle. But it must be remembered that to stop a 
charging lion you must hit him fair, either in the front of the head or in 
the mouth, or in the centre of the chest. Many men have been badly mauled 
or killed by lions, although when they were charged they held in their 
hands very heavy rifles, and actually hit the lions as they came on; but 
they did not hit them fair, but perhaps through the side of the face or 
mouth, possibly breaking one side of the lower jaw, or in the body to one 
side or other of the chest. Such shots, even from the heaviest rifle, will 
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