654 AFRICAN GAME ANIMALS 



covering of the ears is much shorter than that of the tail, 

 being i^ inches in length and confined to the terminal 

 third on the extreme edge of the ear-conch. The eyebrows 

 are armed by a few stiff black hairs, but they are quite in- 

 conspicuous in such a colossal animal. This scanty hair 

 covering is black except occasionally at the tips where it 

 fades to brownish. The skin is quite smooth, the only 

 definite folds being a transverse one on the foreleg above 

 the knee and another across the nape immediately behind 

 the ears. This latter fold, however, disappears when the 

 head is lowered in feeding. Besides these large folds, the 

 sides of the body are streaked by narrow, rib-like folds, a 

 peculiarity not found on other rhinoceroses. These folds, 

 however, are quite independent of the ribs, although they 

 show a similar arrangement and direction. The calves 

 are marked by these peculiar rib-like folds quite as dis- 

 tinctly as the adults. 



The black rhinoceros is very little inferior in size to 

 either the white or the single-horned Indian species, but is 

 somewhat different in body shape from both. From the 

 white it may be distinguished, aside from the shorter head, 

 by its slightly longer body and the absence of the fleshy 

 hump on the nape. The great Indian rhinoceros is at 

 once distinguishable from it by its folded skin, which has 

 the appearance of plates of armor, and by its shorter legs. 

 The largest specimen in bulk of body in the National 

 Museum is an old male from the Loita Plains, British East 

 Africa, shot by Colonel Roosevelt. This one measured, in 

 the flesh: 12 feet 3 inches in length of head and body, 

 measured along the contour of the back; tail, 30 inches; 

 hind foot, from the hock to the tip of the middle hoof, 17^2 

 inches; ear length from notch, g}4 inches; standing height 

 at the withers, 4 feet 9 inches. The greatest length of the 

 skull of this specimen is 2^}4 inches, measured from the tip 

 of the nasal boss to the end of the occipital crests. The 

 largest female is also a specimen from the Loita Plains shot 

 by Colonel Roosevelt. She is but little less in size than the 

 male and exceeded him in the height dimension; but this 

 superiority in height is doubtless due to some error in 

 taking the measurement rather than to an actual differ- 

 ence, as the skull and length of the specimen are both less 



