I3O NATURAL HISTORY ESSAYS 



The white rhinoceros, like its congener, carries 

 two horns, but an examination of a good series of 

 museum specimens will speedily demonstrate that 

 the front one is always flattened anteriorly in the 

 white species, and rounded anteriorly in the black. 

 Moreover, R. simus has always the anterior horn 

 extremely bristly at the base, and exhibiting a 

 whitish colour on section. The anterior horn 

 of the white rhinoceros shows great individual 

 differences of curvature : two well marked types 

 may be recognised. The first type (mohohu) is the 

 commoner : the horn is curved backwards. The 

 second type (kabaoba) is directed forwards, so 

 that the anterior surface is often much worn by 

 repeated contact with the ground when its owner 

 grazes : this is well seen in the type kabaoba horn 

 which Col. Steele presented to the British Museum 

 many years ago. The kabaoba was long described 

 as a separate species under the name of Rhinoceros 

 oswellii, but this distinction is now abandoned, as 

 intermediate forms between the two have been 

 observed. Maximum recorded length of anterior 

 horn (mohohu) 62^ inches : of anterior horn 

 (kabaoba) 56^ inches. Maximum recorded 

 length of posterior horn two feet. The posterior 

 horn is often little more than a mere dermal 

 excrescence, and it was probably from this cause 

 that the natives in Sir A. Smith's day informed 

 him that a race of one-horned rhinoceroses in- 

 habited South Africa. 



