126 SCRIPTURE NATURAL HISTORY. 



very succulent quality, which seem to be destined for his principal 

 food. For the purpose of gaining the highest branches of these, 

 his upper lip is capable of being lengthened out. so as to increase 

 his power of laying hold with this, in the same manner as the ele- 

 phant does with his trunk. With this lip, and the assistance of his 

 tongue, he pulls down the upper branches, which have most leaves,, 

 and these he devours first; having stript the tree of its branches, he 

 does not therefore abandon it, but placing his snout as low in the 

 trunk as he finds his horn will enter, he rips up the body of the 

 tree, and reduces it to thin pieces, like so many laths ; and when he 

 has thus prepared it, he embraces as much of it as he can in his 

 monstrous jaws, and twists it with as much ease as an ox would do 

 a root of celery. 



Such is the description which this intelligent writer gives of the 

 animal he supposes to be thereem of the sacred writers ; and the ob- 

 jections urged against his opinion possess very little weight. Those 

 who desire to see them examined and refuted, may find it done in 

 the Natural Histoiy of the Fragments to Calmet. 



Next to the elephant, the rhinoceros is said to be the most pow- 

 erful of animals. It is usually found twelve feet long, from the tip 

 of the nose to the insertion of the tail ; from six to seven feet high ; 

 and the circumference of its body is nearly equal to its length. It 

 is, therefore, equal to the elephant in bulk ; and the reason of its ap- 

 pearing so much smaller to the eye than that animal, is, that its legs 

 are much shorter. Words, says Goldsmith, can convey but a very 

 confused idea of this animal's shape ; and yet there are few so re- 

 markably formed. But for its horn, which we have already de- 

 scribed, its head would have the appearance of that part of a hog. 

 The skin of the rhinoceros is naked, rough, knotty, and lying upon 

 the body in folds, in a very peculiar manner ; the skin, which is of 

 a dirty brown color, is so thick as to turn the edge of a scimitar, and 

 to resist a musket-ball. 



Such is the general description of an animal that appears chiefly 

 formidable from the horn growing from its snout ; and formed, 

 rather for war, than with a propensity to engage. The elephant, 

 the boar, and the buffalo, are obliged to strike transversely with their 

 weapon; but the rhinoceros, from tho situation of his horn, employs 

 all his force with every blow ; so that the tiger will more willingly 

 attack any other animal of the forest than one whose strength is so 

 justly employed. Indeed, there is no force which this terrible ani- 

 mal has to apprehend : defended on every side by a thick horny 

 hide, which the claws of the lion or the tiger are unable to pierce, 

 and armed before with a weapon that the elephant does not choose 

 to oppose. Travellers have assured us, that the elephant is often 

 found dead in the forests, pierced with the horn of a rhinoceros. 



