I Have Seen A Rhinoceros, While Standing
Apparently Chewing The Cud, Drop Down Dead From A Shot In The Stomach,
While others shot through one lung and the stomach go off as if little hurt.
But if one should crawl
Up silently to within twenty yards
either of the white or black rhinoceros, throwing up a pinch of dust
every now and then, to find out that the anxiety to keep the body
concealed by the bushes has not led him to the windward side,
then sit down, rest the elbow on the knees, and aim, slanting a little upward,
at a dark spot behind the shoulders, it falls stone dead.
To show that a shock on the part of the system to which much nervous force
is at the time directed will destroy life, it may be mentioned that an eland,
when hunted, can be dispatched by a wound which does little more
than injure the muscular system; its whole nervous force is then imbuing
the organs of motion; and a giraffe, when pressed hard by a good horse
only two or three hundred yards, has been known to drop down dead,
without any wound being inflicted at all. A full gallop
by an eland or giraffe quite dissipates its power, and the hunters,
aware of this, always try to press them at once to it, knowing that
they have but a short space to run before the animals are in their power.
In doing this, the old sportsmen are careful not to go too close
to the giraffe's tail, for this animal can swing his hind foot round
in a way which would leave little to choose between a kick with it
and a clap from the arm of a windmill.
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