History of the Rhinoceros 8i 



its enemies by flight than to rout them by attack. When badly wound- 

 ed, or so hustled about by elephants and beaters as to become be- 

 wildered, a rhinoceros will, however, occasionally charge home. In 

 such onslaughts it is the common belief that the animal, like its African 

 cousins, uses its horn as its weapon of offence; but this is an error, the 

 real weapons being the triangular, sharp-pointed low tusks." The 

 same author states in another work 1 on the skin of the animal, "From 

 the immense thickness and apparent toughness of its enormous folds, 

 it was long considered that the hide of the Indian rhinoceros was bullet- 

 proof, and that the only places where the animal was vulnerable were 

 the joints of the armor. ... As a matter of fact, the skin of the 

 living animal is quite soft, and can readily be penetrated in any place 

 by a bullet, or easily pierced by a hunting knife. When dried it becomes, 

 however, exceedingly hard; and it was formerly employed by the 

 Indian princes in the manufacture of shields for their soldiery." 



given for the routes in the southern ocean are not exact, and that a description of 

 twenty to thirty thousand li is nothing but a convention to denote the very remote 

 barbarians of the south. Compare, on Chinese calculations of sea-routes, particularly 

 G. Schlegel (T'oung Pao, Vol. Ill, 1892, pp. 161-5). In Hou Han shu (Ch. 116, 

 p. 3 a) the location of Huang-chi is positively indicated as being south of Ji-nan (Ton- 

 king), which means that it was situated on the Malayan Peninsula. In 84 a.d. the 

 Man I beyond the boundary of Ji-nan offered to the Court a living rhinoceros and 

 a white pheasant (Hou Han shu, Ch. 1 16, p. 3 b). In 94 a.d. the tribes in the south- 

 west of Sze-ch'uan sent an envoy and interpreter presenting a rhinoceros and a big 

 elephant {ibid., Ch. 116, p. 8 b). At the time of the Emperor Ling (168-188 a.d.) 

 of the Later Han dynasty, Kiu-chenin Tonking despatched a living rhinoceros to the 

 Chinese Court (Huan yii ki, and Ta Ming i Vung chi, ed. of 1461, Ch. 90, fol. 5, where 

 it is said also that at the time of the Yuan dynasty [1 260-1 367] Annam presented a 

 rhinoceros). In 539 Fu-nan sent a live rhinoceros (Liang shu, Ch. 54, p. 4). A similar 

 report in regard to the country of Ho-ling (Java) occurs in 819 A.D. at the time of the 

 T'ang dynasty (Kiu T'ang shu, Ch. 197, p. 2 b). Finally the poets Yuan Chen 

 (779-831; Giles, Biographical Dictionary, p. 964) and Po Ku-i have celebrated in 

 verse a tame rhinoceros which had been sent as tribute in the year 796; it was housed 

 in the Shang-lin palace, and an official was appointed to care for it; but in the winter 

 of the following year when great cold set in, the poor creature died. In 1009 Kiao-chi 

 (Annam) presented a tame rhinoceros to the Court (Sung shi, Ch. 489), and there 

 are other similar reports by the essayists of the Sung period. — Tavernier (Travels 

 in India, ed. V. Ball, Vol. I, p. 1 14) saw a rhinoceros eating stalks of millet presented 

 to it by -a small boy; encouraged by this sight, the traveller seized some stalks, and 

 the rhinoceros at once approached him, opening its mouth four or five times; he 

 placed some stalks in it, and when the animal had eaten them, it continued to open 

 its mouth to receive some more. Tame rhinoceroses, to which a good deal of freedom 

 was allowed, were formerly not uncommonly kept by the Rajas of India. Surely, not 

 only men, but also animals, are usually better than their reputation among men. One 

 of the most notable facts about the behavior of the rhinoceros in captivity, as al- 

 ready observed by Darwin (The Variation of Animals and Plants under Domestica- 

 tion, Vol. II, p. 165, Murray's edition, 1905), is that under this condition it breeds in 

 India far more readily than the elephant. The captive elephants, in contrast to the 

 rhinoceros, as pointed out by Darwin and confirmed by others (E. Hahn, Kultur- 

 geschichte der Haustiere, p. 37), but very rarely breed; as a rule, they do not even 

 copulate. There is no doubt that the rhinoceros possesses the qualities fitting it for 

 domestication, and that only the lack of promising advantages has prevented man 

 from embarking on such a plan. 



1 The New Natural History, Vol. II, pp. 1055-1056. 



