ALBERT DURER AND THE RHINOCEROS 



hunted and hunting beasts, is negatived by the sense 

 of sight ? 



THE RHINOCEROS 



This great Ungulate shows all the typical character- 

 istics of the Perissodactyla which have been already and 

 will be referred to. For some reason or other probably 

 blackness and large size it is confounded in the popular 

 mind with its very distant relative, the hippopotamus. 

 It certainly occurs in Africa ; but is purely terrestrial, 

 or, at most, marsh-frequenting. The rhinoceros is the 

 only living Perissodactyle Ungulate which has horns 

 on the forehead or anywhere. These horns, however, 

 are not strictly comparable to those of goats and sheep, 

 of deer and antelopes. They are to be looked upon as 

 simply masses of agglutinated hairs which are borne 

 upon a roughened, at most slightly raised, area of bone. 

 The African rhinos have two of the horns ; some of the 

 Asiatic forms have also two, the others have but one. 

 Next to the presence of horns, the most salient charac- 

 ters of all rhinoceroses is their thick and often folded 

 skin, covered as a rule with but scanty hair. It is truly 

 a " Pachyderm," and one does not wonder that Albert 

 Diirer, in his celebrated drawing of the Indian form 

 (Rh. indicus) represented it as armour-plated with 

 indriven bolts. The strength of the rhinoceros is 

 attested by the thick bars which hedge it in its cage at 

 the Zoo, and its danger to human beings by the iron 

 " refuges " for the keepers to escape into if hard pressed. 

 But it seems doubtful whether the rhinoceros is so fierce 

 as it has been asserted to be. It is true that the poet, 

 ingeniously rhyming, has said 



If ever you meet a rhinoceros 

 Do not linger but flee 

 Up the very next tree : 

 He's a match for the gods ; he can toss Eros. 



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