Big Game Shooting, volume 1 (of 2)Phillipps-Wolley, Clive
General
Big Game Shooting, volume 1 (of 2)
Phillipps-Wolley, Clive
Game and game-birds; Hunting
as there was very little covert, and as I peeped over the top of the
ant-heap, some 60 yards from him, he again stood up and growled, but
nothing more, and as he had turned and was still facing me, I took a
shot at his head with a solid bullet, not wishing to smash his skull
more than I could help. This shot, which knocked him down, hit him a
little under the right eye, broke off two of his upper molar teeth,
and lodged in the flesh of the neck, but he picked himself up, bolted
to another bush and again lay down. As he lay facing me, and crouching
close to the ground, I walked up, this time to within 40 yards of him,
and sat down to get another shot at his head; but just as I did so he
raised his head, and not wishing to damage his skin more than possible
with a .500 Express bullet, I took my .360 double Express from the
gun-bearer and fired at the centre of his throat, when the poor beast
dropped his head and lay still. On going up to him I found he was not
quite dead, but choking fast from my last shot, and as I stood over
him his side gave two or three mighty heaves, like a dog’s when in the
act of disgorging something, and out gushed part of his last meal, an
accumulation of buffalo skin, flesh, entrails, and clots of blood. This
was his last effort, and he never moved again. Leaving some of the men
to skin him, I went back to the buffalo and took up the blood-spoor of
the wounded lioness, and came across the place where she had been lying
down. She had evidently just left as I came up, as the blood leading to
the spot was quite dry from the heat of the sun, whereas that leading
away was fresh and wet.
She unfortunately kept down wind, and although desperately wounded,
she eventually managed, after going about two miles, to get into some
hard stony ground, where, as her wound had almost stopped bleeding, I
had most reluctantly to give her up. Several times I came across places
where she had rested and bled profusely, and in one small pool of blood
I picked up a piece of flat bone, about half an inch square, with a
ridge down the centre, evidently part of her shoulder-blade, which had
worked out of the bullet hole; but she never allowed me to approach
near enough to see her in the thick covert.
CHAPTER XIII
THE RHINOCEROS
BY F. J. JACKSON
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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