History of the Rhinoceros 83 



thing else connected with the animal, is an attractive subject of great 

 culture-historical interest. It should be stated at the outset that the 

 Chinese sketches pointed out by Mr. Giles, and other Chinese illustra- 

 tions as well, can never have been intended for any bovines, whatever 

 the alleged bovine character in the animal may be; for there is in this 

 world no bovine animal with a single horn and three toes which, as will 

 be shown, appear in the early Chinese definition, and are plainly out- 

 lined in the sketch of the rhinoceros said in the Erh ya to be of hog-like 

 appearance (Fig. 6). 1 The single horn and the three toes, however, 

 are thoroughly characteristic of the rhinoceros, and of this animal 

 exclusively. But we are first going to study the psychology of the case. 

 On the first day of May of the year 151 5 the first live rhinoceros was 

 brought to modern Europe from India by Portuguese, and presented to 

 King Emanuel of Portugal. 2 In commemoration of this event, Albrecht 

 Durer, who took a deep interest in exotic animals and people, sketched 

 in the same year a likeness of this rhinoceros, published as a wood- 

 engraving, with a somewhat lengthy description in German. Diirer's 

 original drawing is still preserved in the British Museum (Plate IX). 3 It 

 is so weak that, as already pointed out by Dr. Parsons, 4 the first serious 



1 See likewise Fig. 9, p. 102. 



2 The history of this event is narrated in the Decadas de Asia of J. de Barros 

 (quoted by Yule and Burnell, Hobson-Jobson, p. 363): "And in return for many 

 rich presents which this Diogo Fernandez carried to the King, and besides others 

 which the King sent to Affonso Alboquerque, there was an animal, the biggest which 

 Nature has created after the elephant, and the great enemy of the latter . . . which 

 the natives of the land of Cambaya, whence this one came, call Ganda, and the Greeks 

 and Latins Rhinoceros. And Affonso d'Alboquerque sent this to the King Don Man- 

 uel, and it came to this Kingdom, and it was afterwards lost on its way to Rome, when 

 the King sent it as a present to the Pope." 



3 1 am indebted to Mr. Laurence Binyon of the British Museum for his courtesy 

 in favoring me with a copy of this wood-engraving, from which our reproduction is 

 made. The particulars of the history of this engraving are discussed by C. Dodgson 

 (Catalogue of Early German and Flemish Woodcuts in the British Museum, Vol. I, 

 p. 307, Lorldon, 1903). 



4 Die natiirliche Historie des Nashorns, welche von Doctor Parsons in einem 

 Schreiben an Martin Folkes, Rittern und Prasidenten der Koniglich-Englischen 

 Societat abgefasset, mit zuverlassigen Abbildungen versehen, und aus dem Englischen 

 in das Deutsche ubersezet worden von Doctor Georg Leonhart Huth, Niirnberg, 

 bey Stein und Raspe, 1747. The English original of this interesting pamphlet of 16 

 pages in quarto is not known to me. It is accompanied by three plates engraved on 

 copper representing the first fairly exact figures of the rhinoceros in various views, 

 its horn and other organs of its body. An anonymous copper-engraving was pub- 

 lished in 1748 under the title, "Vera effigies Rhinocerotis qui in Asia, et quidem in 

 terris Mogolis Magni in regione Assam captus et anno 1741 tertio aetatis anno a 

 capitano Douvemont van der Meer ex Bengala in Belgium translatus est." This 

 rhinoceros, a three years old animal, was exhibited in Holland in 1741, and styled on 

 the placards the behemoth of the Bible (Job, 40) and the unicorn of mediaeval times. 

 It proved an overwhelming sensation. In 1747 it made its appearance at Leipzig 

 where Gellert set it a literary monument in the poem with the beginning, "In 

 order to behold the rhinoceros, I was told by my friend, I resolved to stroll out." In 



