History of the Rhinoceros 



93 



animal si is denned in the Shuo wen as "an ox occurring beyond the 

 southern frontier. It has a horn on its nose and another one on the 

 crown of its head; it resembles a pig." 1 This definition fits no other 

 animal than the two-horned species of rhinoceros, and has great his- 

 torical value as a piece of evidence in determining the former geograph- 

 ical distribution of the species. The passage shows us that in the first 

 century a.d. it no longer existed in northern China, where its habitat 

 had been prior to that time, and that it was then driven back beyond the 

 southern border, speaking roughly, south of the Yangtse. It was then 

 naturalized in Yiin-nan, in the country of the Ai-lao, 2 and in Tonking. 3 



To the author of Kiao chou ki we owe the following interesting de- 

 scription of the Annamese rhinoceros: 4 "The rhinoceros (si) has its 

 habitat in the district of Kiu-te (in Tonking). It has hair like swine, 

 three toes, and a head like a horse. It is provided with two horns, — 

 the horn on the nose being long, the horn on the forehead short." It is 

 clearly manifest that this description comes from an eye-witness, or 

 one well informed by the native hunters, and that it perfectly fits the 

 two-horned so-called Sumatran rhinoceros (Rhinoceros sumatrensis) , 

 the only living Asiatic species with two horns, and also the most hairy 

 one. 5 Its essential characteristics are well observed and briefly set 

 forth in this definition. 



The dictionary Erhya, edited by Kuo P'o (276-324) , defines the animal 

 se as resembling the ox, and the animal si as resembling swine. The 

 commentary by Kuo P'o explains that the se has a single horn, is dark 

 in color, and weighs a thousand catties; 6 and "the si resembles in form 



1 Marco Polo (edition of Yule and Cordier, Vol. II, p. 285) says regarding 

 the rhinoceros of Java that its head resembles that of a boar. 



2 Hon Han shu, Ch. 1 16, p. 8 b. 



3 The question of the former geographical distribution of the rhinoceros in China 

 is studied in detail below, pp. 159-166. 



4 Yen kien lei han, Ch. 340, p. 1. In Annamese the rhinoceros is called hut 

 (written with the Chinese character for se) and tdy or te (written with the character 

 for si). 



6 Hair grows sparsely all over the head and body, but attains its maximum de- 

 velopment on the ears and the tail, its color varying from brown to black. The long- 

 est known specimen of the front horn is in the British Museum, and has a length of 

 32K inches, with a basal girth of 17H inches; a second specimen in the same collec- 

 tion measures 2y^i inches in length, and 17J4 in circumference (R. Lydekker, The 

 Game Animals of India, p. 38). The statement of the Kiao chou ki that the horn is 

 two or three feet long is therefore no exaggeration. Concerning the two horns in the 

 si, there is consensus of opinion between that work and the Shuo wen. 



6 This may not be an exaggeration, though merely based on a rough estimate. 

 The average weight of the rhinoceros, for reasons easy to comprehend, has never been 

 ascertained. But if the weight of the skin alone may come to three hundred pounds 

 (E. Heller, The White Rhinoceros, p. 10), the complete animal may easily total a 

 thousand and more. K'ang-hi and the modern editions of the Erh ya write "thousand 



