MAMMALIA— RHINOCEROS. 



307 



to be hunted and subdued. They never attack men unless provoked ; but 

 then they become furious, and are very formidable. The steel of Damascus, 

 the cimeters of Japan, cannot make an incision in his skin ; the darts and 

 lances cannot pierce him through. His skin even resists the balls of 

 a musket; those of lead become flat upon his leather, and the iron ingots 

 cannot penetrate through it. The only places absolutely penetrable in this 

 body, armed with a cuirass, are the belly, the eyes, and round the ears ; so 

 that huntsmen, instead of attacking this animal standing, follow him at a 

 distance by his track, and wait to approach him at the time that he sleeps 

 or rests himself. There is, in the king of France's cabinet, the foetus of a 

 rhinoceros, which was sent from the island of Java, and extracted from the 

 body of the mother. It was said, in a memorial which accompanied this 

 present, that twenty-eight huntsmen had assembled to attack vhis rhinoce- 

 ros. They had followed her far off for some days, one or two men walking 

 now and then before, to reconnoitre the position of the animal. By these 

 means, they surprised her when she was asleep, and came so near in 

 silence, that they discharged, all at once, their twenty-eight guns into the 

 lower parts of her belly. 



A rhinoceros, about a year old, recently brought from Calcutta, was 

 lately exhibited in Boston. The engraving furnishes a very exact represen- 

 tation of this animal. Its length, from the nose to the insertion of the tail, 



was six feet ; its height, three feet four inches. The length of its head, 

 eighteen inches; that of its tail, thirteen inches. The horn had not made 

 its appearance upon the nose, but there was a large protuberance, which 

 indicated the pla^e where it was growing, and seemed -to form the root or 

 basis of it. The animal, when disturbed, made a noise like a young calf. 

 It had very much the air and manners of a hog. It betrayed no fear 



