372 ZOOLOGY 



English park, ^lucli the same condition may be observed in parts of the 

 I'rotectorate off the beaten track, where British sportsmen have not had 

 an opportmiity to harry and destroy. But in all these countries the 

 rhinoceros is not tamed liy this tolerance, but is apt to become a dangerous 

 nuisance bv charging at all and everything at a moment's notice when it 

 is plavful or out of temper. Thus amongst a people like the Masai it is 

 much dreaded. The ]Masai do not eat — and therefore do not kill — game. 

 Thev fear no wild beast but the rhinoceros, because all other creatures, 

 if they are let alone, seem to experience, as a rule, no desire to attack 

 liuman beings. The rhinoceros, however, makes absolutely unprovoked 

 charges, and occasionally gores a man before he has time to get out of the 

 way. Fortunately these huge beasts are very stupid and very lilind. They 

 ])robably can see little or nothing with any clearness that is ten yards 

 away from them. They are guided entirely by their sense of smell, which, 

 however, is extraordinarily keen. If the rhinoceros is out of temper, and 

 gets wind of a liuman being or some other form of animated life, he will 

 suddenly charge " up the wind." Mr. Doggett once saw a male ostrich 

 nearly felled and gored by a rhinoceros whicli was seized with a fit of 

 improvoked wrath. The ostrich was so completely taken aback at the 

 charge that it only eluded the rhino's horn by a close shave. It is 

 rare that the rhino deflects from tliis line of charge to the right or to 

 the left ; therefore, any one who is on his guard can jump aside and let 

 this steam-engine of an animal plunge snorting on its reckless career. 

 The rhinoceros, however, is often very timid, and so far as my small 

 experience of its habits is concerned, rarely, if ever, charges the sportsman 

 because it has been shot — unless, of course, the latter approaches imprudently 

 close to a wounded animal. Ehinoceroses are seen in ones and twos, or at 

 most there may be a bull, a cow, and a calf together. However abundant 

 they are in a district, they never seem to go in herds, and niore often 

 than not are seen grazing apart from one another. 



The rhinoceros of which a picture is here given is the ordinary 

 pointed-lipped, black rhinoceros of Africa, which ranges, or used to range, 

 from Cape Colony to Abyssinia and Nubia, and thence, })erhaps, across 

 Africa westward to Lake Chad and Eastern Nigeria. So far as I am aware, 

 the rhinoceros has not been found to exist in x\frica west of tlie Central 

 Niger, if, indeed, it gets much farther west than Lake Chad.* This is 

 curious, if true; because the other big beasts of tlie African fauna, though, 

 like the rhinoceros, they mostly avoid the Congo and ^^'est African forests, 

 stretch in their distribution right across Africa, from Abyssinia to Senegal. 



* Rhinoceroses swarmed in the countries to the north of Lake Chad in the days 

 of the Eonians. This fact was rejiorted by the exploring Eoman expedition under 

 Septimus Flaccus, sent south of Fezzan towards Lake Chad at about a.d. 10. 



