^t) THE SELOUS COLLECTION. 



ii'oui Lado ; tlie latter foi-ni differs in having a Hatter skull and 

 smaller teeth. The longest horn on record of the South African 

 race is Q2h inches in length. 



Typical locality, Cape Cohtny ; range foi-uiei'l}' extended over the 

 greater jiart of Africa south of the Zambesi. As a wild animal 

 the South African White Ivhinoceros is now extinct, a few still 

 survl\'e in a semi-wild state under Government protection. 



Writing in the year ISSl concerning the White Ivhinoceros 

 Selous states as follows * : — " . . . Twenty years ago this animal 

 seems to have been very plentiful in the western half of Southern 

 Africa ; now, unless it is still to be found between the Okavango 

 and (Junene rivers, it must be almost extinct in that portion of 

 the country. And this is not to be wondered at, when one reads 

 the accounts in Andersson's and Chapman's books of their shooting 

 as many as eight of these animals in one night, as the}'' were 

 drinking at a small water-hole ; for it must be remembered that 

 these isolated water-holes, at the end of the dry season, represented 

 all the water to be found over an enormous extent of country, and 

 that therefore all the rhinoceroses that in ha}»pier times were dis- 

 tributed ovei' many hundreds of square miles were in times of 

 drought dependent upon perhaps a single ])ool for their supply of 

 water. In 1<S77, during several months' hunting in the country to 

 the south of Lin^^anti, on the i-iver Chobe, I only saw the spoor of 

 two Squa re-mo vithed Ehinoceroses, though in 1874 I had found 

 them fairly plentiful in the same district ; whilst in 1870, during 

 eight months spent in hunting on and between the Botletlie, 

 Mababe, Machabe, Sunta, and Upper Chobe rivers, I never saw 

 the spoor of one of these animals, and all the Bushmen I met with 

 said they were finished. In 1878 and 1880, however, I still found 

 them fairty numerous in a small tract of country in North-eastern 

 Mashuna Land, between the Umniati and Hanyane rivers. Their 

 range, however, is rather limited towards the north, as they only 

 inhabit the country lying to the south of tlie belt of rough ston}^ 

 hills which in this district extend for more than a hundred miles 

 southwards from the banks of the Zambesi river. Their exter- 

 mination in this' portion of the countr^^ may therefore, I am afraid, 



* Proc. Zool. Soc. 1881, p. 725. 



