414 RHINOCEROS OF THE LADO [ch. xiv 



A couple of hundred yards away she fell, rose again, 

 staggered, fell again, and died. The calf, which was old 

 enough to shift for itself, refused to leave the body, 

 although Kermit and Grogan pelted it with sticks and 

 clods. Finally, a shot through the Hesh of the buttocks 

 sent it oft' in frantic haste. Kermit had only killed the 

 cow because it was absolutely necessary in order to avoid 

 an accident, and he was sorry for the necessity ; but 1 

 was not, for it was a very fine specimen, with the front 

 horn thirty-one inches long, being longer than any other 

 we had secured. The second horn was compressed 

 laterally, exactly as with many black rhinos (although 

 it is sometimes stated that this does not occur in the 

 case of the white rhino). We preserved the head, skin, 

 and skull for the National Museum. 



The llesh of tins rhino, especially the hump, proved 

 excellent. It is a singular thing that scientific writers 

 seem almost to have overlooked, and never lay any stress 

 upon, the existence of this neck hump. It is on the 

 neck, in front of the long dorsal vertebra, and is very 

 conspicuous in the living animal ; and I am inclined 

 to think tliat some inches of the exceptional height 

 measurements attributed to South African white rhinos 

 may be due to measuring to the top of this hump. I 

 am also puzzled by what seems to be the great inferiority 

 m horn development of these square-mouthed rhinos of 

 the Lado to the square-mouthed or white rhinos of 

 South Africa (and, by the way, I may mention that on 

 the whole these Lado rhinos certainly looked lighter 

 coloured when we came across them standing in the 

 open than did their prehensile-lipped East African 

 brethren). We saw between thirty and forty square- 

 mouthed rhinos in the Lado, and Kermit's cow had 

 much the longest horn of any of them ; and while they 



