172 HUNTING IN THE SOTIK [ch. viii 



advanced toward him in distinctly bellicose style ; then 

 she recognized him, her calf trotted up, and the three 

 animals stood together, tossing their heads, and evi- 

 dently trying to make out what was near them. But 

 we were down wind, and they do not see well, with their 

 little twinkling pig's eyes. We were anxious not to be 

 charged by the cow and calf, as her horn was very poor, 

 and it would have been unpleasant to be obliged to 

 shoot her, and so we drew off. 



Next day, when Kermit and 1 were out alone with 

 our gun-bearers, we saw another rhino, a bull, with a 

 stubby horn. This rhino, like the others of the neigh- 

 bourhood, was enjoying his noonday rest in the open, 

 miles from cover. " Look at him," said Kermit, 

 "• standing there in the middle of the African plain, 

 deep in prehistoric thought." Indeed the rhinoceros 

 does seem like a survival from the elder world that has 

 vanished ; he was in place in the Pliocene Age ; he would 

 not have been out of place in the INIiocene ; but nowadays 

 he can only exist at all in regions that have lagged 

 behind, while the rest of the world, for good or for evil, 

 has gone forward. Like other beasts, rhinos differ in 

 habits in different places. This prehensile-lipped species 

 is everywhere a browser, feeding on the twigs and leaves 

 of the bushes and low trees ; but in their stomachs 1 

 have found long grass stems mixed with the twig tips 

 and leaves of stunted bush. In some regions they live 

 entirely in rather thick bush ; whereas on the plains 

 over which we were hunting the animals haunted the 

 open by preference, feeding through thin bush, where 

 they were visible miles away, and usually taking their 

 rest, either standing or lying, out on the absolutely bare 

 plains. They drank at the small shallow rain pools, 

 seemingly once every twenty-four hours ; and I saw 



