THE RHINOCEROS OF THE LADO 403 



rather dimly through the long grass a big gray bulk, near 

 the foot of the tree; it was a rhinoceros lying asleep on its 

 side, looking like an enormous pig. It heard something 

 and raised itself on its forelegs, in a sitting posture, the 

 big ears thrown forward. I fired for the chest, and the 

 heavy Holland bullet knocked it clean off its feet. Squeal- 

 ing loudly it rose again, but it was clearly done for, and 

 it never got ten yards from where it had been lying. 



At the shot four other rhino rose. One bolted to the 

 right, two others ran to the left. Firing through the grass 

 Kermit wounded a bull and followed it for a long distance, 

 but could not overtake it; ten days later,* however, he 

 found the carcass, and saved the skull and horns. Mean- 

 while I killed a calf, which was needed for the museum; 

 the rhino I had already shot was a full-grown cow, doubtless 

 the calPs mother. As the rhino rose I was struck by their 

 likeness to the picture of the white rhino in Cornwallis 

 Harris's folio of the big game of South Africa seventy years 

 ago. They were totally different in look from the com- 

 mon rhino, seeming to stand higher and to be shorter in 

 proportion to their height, while the hump and the huge, 

 ungainly, square-mouthed head added to the dissimilar- 

 ity. The common rhino is in color a very dark slate gray; 

 these were a rather lighter slate gray; but this was proba- 

 bly a mere individual peculiarity, for the best observers 

 say that they are of the same hue. The muzzle is broad 

 and square, and the upper lip without a vestige of the 

 curved, prehensile development which makes the upper lip 

 of a common rhino look like the hook of a turtle's beak. 



* Kermit on this occasion was using the double-barrelled rifle which had been 

 most kindly lent him for the trip by Mr. John Jay White, of New York. 



