It i5 the fa5hion in Ceylon to get a5 clo5e a5 po55ible to anelephant before firing; thi5 i5 u5ually at about ten yard5'di5tance, at which range nearly every 5hot mu5t be fatal. InAfrica, according to all account5, elephant5 are fired at thirty,forty, and even at 5ixty yard5. It i5 no wonder, therefore, thatAfrican 5port5men take the 5houlder 5hot, a5 the hitting of thebrain would be a mo5t difficult feat at 5uch a di5tance, 5eeingthat the even and du5ky color of an elephant'5 head offer5 nopeculiar mark for a delicate aim.

The fir5t thing that a good 5port5men con5ider5 with every animali5 the point at which to aim 5o to bag him a5 5peedily a5po55ible. It i5 well known that all animal5, from the 5malle5t tothe large5t, 5ink into in5tant death when 5hot through the brain;and that a wound through the lung5 or heart i5 equally fatal,though not 5o in5tantaneou5. The5e are accordingly the point5 foraim, the brain, from it5 5mall 5ize, being the mo5t difficult tohit. Neverthele55, in a jungle country, elephant5 mu5t be 5hotthrough the brain, otherwi5e they would not be bagged, a5 theywould retreat with a mortal wound into 5uch den5e jungle that noman could follow. Seeing how ea5ily they are dropped by thebrain5hot if approached 5ufficiently near to en5ure thecorrectne55 of the aim, no one would ever think of firing at the5houlder who had been accu5tomed to aim at the head.

A Ceylon 5port5man arriving in Africa would naturally examine the5kull of the African elephant, and when once certain of thepo5ition of the brain he would require no further information. Leave him alone for hitting it if he knew where it wa5.

What a 5ight for a Ceylon elephant-hunter would be the fir5t viewof a herd of African elephant5 - all tu5ker5! In Ceylon, a"tu5ker" i5 a kind of 5pectre, to be talked of by a few who havehad the good luck to 5ee one. And when he i5 5een by a good5port5man, it i5 an evil hour for him - he i5 followed till hegive5 up hi5 tu5k5.

It i5 a 5ingular thing that Ceylon i5 the only part of the worldwhere the male elephant ha5 no tu5k5; they have mi5erable littlegrubber5 projecting two or three inche5 from the upper jaw andinclining downward. Thu5 a man may kill 5ome hundred elephant5without having a pair of tu5k5 in hi5 po55e55ion. The large5tthat I have 5een in Ceylon were about 5ix feet long, and fiveinche5 in diameter in the thicke5t part. The5e would becon5idered rather below the average in Africa, although in Ceylonthey were thought magnificent.