AFRICAN RHINOCEROSES 1063 



animals. In the densest parts, where roots and stems render the jungle almost im- 

 pervious, there are places known by the inhabitants as rhinoceros houses. The 

 stems and branches ha generally been broken away or pushed back, so as to leave 

 a clear space, about fifteen or twenty feet in diameter, at the bottom of which the 

 ground has been worn into a hollow by the trampling and rolling of the animal in 

 wet weather. These houses are used as retreats during the heat of the day. On 

 two or three occasions we disturbed a rhinoceros from one of these, and he rushed 

 off with much noise and loud snorts through the bushes. So far as we could learn 

 from our observations, these animals enter the thick jungle early in the morning 

 and rest until one or two o'clock in the day, then they leave their thickets and go 

 out to feed, usually remaining, however, among high bushes. At the time of year 

 in which we visited the country, rain generally set in in the afternoon, and, even if 

 it did not rain the sky was overcast. In the clear weather the rhinoceroses are said 

 never to appear before evening. They are great browsers, feeding chiefly on the 

 young shoots and branches of acacia and other trees, or on fruits; so far as I could 

 see they do not generally eat grass. Their movements are very quick, their usual 

 pace being a smart trot, and the numerous tracks show that they move about a good 

 deal." After expressing his doubts as to the statements of the natives that a man 

 on horse cannot escape from one of these animals, Mr. Blanford adds that ' ' they 

 are easily eluded by turning, as they are not quick of sight, and, like most Mam- 

 mals, they never look for enemies in trees; consequently, a man two or three feet 

 from the ground will remain unnoticed by them if he keeps quiet. They are said 

 to be extremely savage, and unquestionably the first one killed by us charged most 

 viciously. ... I cannot help thinking, however, that their savage disposition 

 has been somewhat exaggerated." Most of these animals seen by the members of 

 the Abyssinian Epedition were in pairs, an old female with a nearly full-grown 

 calf, but on one occasion four were observed. Mr. Blanford compares the snort 

 of alarm or rage uttered by these animals when disturbed to the noise of a loo> 

 motive rather than to the sound of any other animal. 



The foregoing account is confirmed in all essential particulars by the observa- 

 tions of Mr. Selous in Southeastern Africa, who writes that this species of rhi- 

 noceros "lives exclusively upon bush and roots, eating not only the young leaves as 

 they sprout from the end of a twig, but also chewing up a good deal of the twig 

 itself. It is owing to the fact that this species lives upon bush that its range is very 

 much more extended than that of the square-mouthed rhinoceros; for there are 

 many large districts of the country in the neighborhood of the Zambezi to the east- 

 ward of the Victoria Falls covered almost entirely with an endless succession of rug- 

 ged hills, almost devoid of grass, though well wooded, in all of which districts the 

 prehensile-lipped rhinoceros is numerous, as it thrives well upon the scrubby bush 

 with which the hillsides and valleys are covered; whereas the square-mouthed 

 species, though common in the forest-clad sand belts and broad grassy valleys which 

 always skirt the hills, is seldom or never found among the hills themselves, which 

 is doubtless because the pasturage is too scanty to enable it to exist." 



The same writer also tells us that this rhinoceros, like the larger African species, 

 exhibits extraordinary activity in getting over hilly and rocky ground, and that it 



