200 AFRICAN NATURE NOTES chap. 



from my own experience (and in 1872, 1873, and 

 1874 the clumsy old four-bore guns I used were 

 very inferior even to the two -grooved rifles 

 possessed by Harris, Oswell, or Gordon Gumming) 

 and all I heard from many old Boer and native 

 hunters, I feel convinced that the character of 

 the black rhinoceros was originally painted by 

 picturesque writers in colours which, although 

 they may have been appropriate to a certain small 

 proportion of these animals, were quite undeserved 

 by the great majority of the species. I will con- 

 clude these notes on the black rhinoceros with a 

 letter which I have lately received from President 

 Roosevelt, covering a most remarkable and ex- 

 cessively interesting description of a struggle 

 between a crocodile and a rhinoceros in the Tana 

 river, in British East Africa. Before making any 

 comments on this extraordinary incident, I will 

 first give both President Roosevelt's letter to myself 

 and his correspondent's communication, as I have full 

 permission to do. 



The White House, Washington, 

 September 27, 1907. 



My dear Mr. Selous — I don't know whether the 

 enclosed letter and photographs will be of any value to 

 you in your book or not. Both relate to an occurrence 

 so remarkable that I thought I would send them to you. 

 Fleischmann is a man of good standing, entirely truthful, 

 and he had no conception of the importance of what 

 he was telling me. I told him that the " authorities in 

 Africa" who informed him that the crocodile might have 

 gotten a purchase by wrapping its tail around something 

 sunken were doubtless in error, and advised him to leave 

 it out of the letter which he wrote me, which I told him I 

 was going to send to you. But he put it in, and I am 

 sending it along. It is the only part of his letter which 

 is mere hearsay or guesswork. I had no conception that 



