372 ZOOLOGY 



English park. ]\Iucli tlie same condition may be observed in parts of the 

 Protectorate oft" the beaten track, where British sportsmen have not had 

 an opportmiity (o harry and de^tl•oy. But in all these countiies the 

 rhinoceros is not tamed by tin's tolerance, but is apt to become a dangerous 

 nuisance by charging at all and everything at a moment's notice when it 

 is plavful or out of temper. Thus amongst a p)eople like the Masai it is 

 much dreaded. The ]Nhisai do not eat — and therefore do not kill — game, 

 'i'hev fear no wild beast but the rhinoceros, because all other creatures, 

 if they are let alone, seem to experience, as a rule, no desire to attack 

 liuman beings. The rhinoceros, however, niakes al)solutely unprovoked 

 charges, and occasionally gores a man before he has time to get out of the 

 Avav. Fortunately these huge beasts are very stu[)id and very blind. They 

 jirobably can see little or nothing with any clearness that is ten yards 

 away from them. They are guided entirely by their sense of smell, which, 

 however, is extraordinarilv keen. If the rhinoceros is out of temper, and 

 gets wind of a human being or some other ibrm of animated life, he will 

 suddenlv charge "up the wind.'' Mr. Doggett once saw a male ostrich 

 nearlv felled and gored by a rhinoceros which was seized with a fit of 

 unpi'oNoked wrath. The ostrich was so completely taken aback at the 

 charare that it onlv eluded the rhino's horn hv a close shave. It is 

 rare that the rhino detlects from this line of charge to the light or to 

 the left ; therefore, any one who is on his guard can jum[t aside and let 

 this steam-engine of an animal plunge snorting on its reckless career. 

 The rhinoceros, however, is often very timid, and so far as my small 

 experience of its habits is concerned, rarely, if ever, charges the sportsman 

 because it has been shot — unless, of course, the latter approaches imprudently 

 close to a wounded animal. Rhinoceroses are seen in ones and twos, or at 

 most there may be a bull, a cow, and a calf together. However abundant 

 thev are in a district, they never seem to go in herds, and more often 

 than not are seen grazing apart from one another. 



The rhinoceros of which a jiicture is here given is the ordinary 

 pointed-lipped, black rhinoceros of Africa, which ranges, or used to range, 

 from Cape Colony to Abyssinia and Nubia, and thence, perhaps, across 

 Africa westward to Lake Chad and Eastern Nigeria. So far as I am aware, 

 the rhinoceros has not been found to exist in Africa west of the Central 

 Niger, if, indeed, it gets much farther west than Lake Chad.* This is 

 curious, if true ; because the other big beasts of the African fauna, though, 

 like the rhinoceros, they mostly avoid the Congo and \^'est African forests, 

 stretch in their distribution right across Africa, from Abyssinia to Senegal. 



* Rhinoceroses swarmed in the countries to the north of Lake Chad in the days 

 of the Ivomans. This fact Avas rejiorted by the exploring Roman exjiedition under 

 Se])timus Flaccus, sent south of Fezzan towards Lake Chad at about A.n. 10. 



