640 AFRICAN GAME ANIMALS 



but such teeth persist as mere rudiments beneath the gums 

 and never become functional. A more permanent feature 

 of this sort is the persistence of the first premolar through- 

 out life. The genus to-day is represented by a single 

 species, hiconiis, and is confined to Ethiopian Africa, but 

 in the Pleistocene it occurred as far north as Algeria in the 

 Mediterranean region. Besides the Pleistocene species of 

 Algeria another has been described from Northern Rhodesia 

 by Chubb, which is smaller but closely allied to the living 

 bicornis. Scott described some cheek-teeth of a rhinoceros 

 from the Pliocene of Natal, which he referred to a new 

 species, but they are quite indistinguishable in size or shape 

 from those of bicornis. It is evident from these discoveries 

 that bicornis has long been an inhabitant of Africa and 

 doubtless is a form which originated on that continent. 



The black or common African rhinoceros was fairly 

 ■plentiful in most parts of East Africa which we visited; there 

 were stretches of territory, however, in which we found 

 none, as, for instance, on the Uasin Gishu. Why the species 

 was absent from these places we cannot say, for elsewhere 

 we came across them in all kinds of country. They were 

 found in the dense, rather cold forests of Mount Kenia ; they 

 were found in the forest country near Kijabe; they were 

 common in the thick thorn scrub and dry bush jungle in 

 many places; and in the Sotik and along the Guaso Nyiro 

 of the north, as well as here and there elsewhere, they were 

 to be seen every day as we journeyed and hunted across the 

 bare, open plains. " Plentiful " is, of course, a relative term ; 

 there were thousands of zebras, hartebeests, gazelles, and 

 other buck for every one or two rhinos; it is doubtful 

 whether we saw more than two or three hundred black 

 rhinos all told, and we do not remember seeing more than 

 half a dozen or so on any one day. Probably they were 

 most abundant in the brush and forest on the lower slopes 



