46 RHINOCEROSES 



away from their mother's carcase, and would charge most viciously at 

 anything that approached, just as will a very young elephant. 



" In colour the white rhinoceros was a neutral grey. It is true 

 that when standing in open ground on a winter's morning, with the 

 sun shining full upon them, they looked very white ; and since the 

 Boers must first have encountered these animals on the open grass 

 plains in the neighbourhood of the Vaal river, this may have induced 

 them to bestow upon the species a name which appears inappropriate. 

 Cornwallis Harris refers to the white rhinoceros as varying in colour, 

 but being usually dirty brownish white. All I have seen appeared 

 about the same colour — a uniform grey, with no suspicion of brown or 

 white. 



" White rhinoceroses usually associated in pairs or families, a bull 

 and cow living together with one or perhaps two calves, one of which 

 would be quite large. When these rhinoceroses were numerous, several 

 pairs or families were, no doubt, often attracted to the same piece of 

 pasture, and when feeding near together w^ould have presented the 

 appearance of a herd ; but, had such a herd been watched, I expect it 

 would have been seen to break up and divide into families of three or 

 four on leaving the feeding-grounds. 



" As these rhinoceroses feed exclusively on grass, open valleys or 

 thin forest -country with good pasturage between the trees, as in 

 Mashonaland, were essential to their existence. Like the rest of their 

 kind, they were inquisitive creatures ; and on one occasion a full- 

 grown individual, evidently attracted by the light of the fires, walked 

 straight up to my camp at night, and was only driven away by fire- 

 brands being thrown at its head." 



GREVY'S ZEBRA 



{Equus grevyi) 



Fero, Somali ; Kanka, Ndorobo 



(Plate ii, fig. 4) 



With Grevy's zebra of Abyssinia, Somaliland, and the Lake Rudolf 

 district, we come to the first representative of the horse -tribe, or 

 EquidcE, in which are included not only the wild horse and its domesti- 

 cated relatives, but zebras and asses. Although both belong to the 

 same suborder — the Perissodactyla — the members of the horse tribe 



