Nevertheless, in a jungle country, elephants must be shot through the brain, otherwise they would not be bagged, as they would retreat with a mortal wound into such dense jungle that no man could follow.

Seeing how easily they are dropped by the brainshot if approached sufficiently near to ensure the correctness of the aim, no one would ever think of firing at the shoulder who had been accustomed to aim at the head.
A Ceylon sportsman arriving in Africa would naturally examine the skull of the African elephant, and when once certain of the position of the brain he would require no further information.

Leave him alone for hitting it if he knew where it was.
What a sight for a Ceylon elephant-hunter would be the first view of a herd of African elephants--all tuskers! In Ceylon, a "tusker" is a kind of spectre, to be talked of by a few who have had the good luck to see one.

And when he is seen by a good sportsman, it is an evil hour for him--he is followed till he gives up his tusks.
It is a singular thing that Ceylon is the only part of the world where the male elephant has no tusks; they have miserable little grubbers projecting two or three inches from the upper jaw and inclining downward.

Thus a man may kill some hundred elephants without having a pair of tusks in his possession.