THE WHITE RHINOCEROS 189 



as were these rhinoceroses in the golden days of 

 South African sport, they yet had in addition to 

 their own keen powers of scent a very constant 

 ally and friend — a friend found, too, almost always 

 in attendance upon the black rhinoceros. This was 

 the well-known rhinoceros-bird {Bu]phaga eo^ythroryn- 

 cha), that starling which, as I have mentioned, fre- 

 quently accompanies the rhinoceros, as well as buffalo 

 and domestic cattle, in small flocks, for the sake of the 

 ticks and other parasites that infest them. These 

 rhinoceros-birds are of a brownish-black colour, with 

 red bills; they undoubtedly warn the rhinoceros 

 when danger approaches by alighting on his head 

 or back, striking him with their bills, and uttering 

 sharp cries — warnings which are never neglected. 

 Many a dull beast has been saved in this way by 

 the timely admonition of these feathered friends. 



The white rhinoceros seems to have put on much 

 more flesh than his cousin hicoomis, who never seems 

 to attain any great degree of fatness. Selous states 

 that in the autumn and winter months of Africa 

 (March till August) the square-mouthed rhinoceros 

 was usually very fat, and that its meat, especially 

 the hump, was then most excellent. The appetite 

 of a wild rhinoceros must, like that of an elephant, 

 be a pretty capacious one. In captivity the daily 

 food allowance of one of these creatures seems to 

 be, roughly, " one truss of straw, three-quarters of a 



