THE SELOUS COLLECTION. SiJ 



Selous * gives the foliowing; account of the distribution of this 

 Khinoceros during the period 1872 to 1881. "... I now come to 

 the Prehensile-lipped lihinoceros {R. hicornis), of which 1 main- 

 tain there is but one true species, in spite of whatever may be said 

 by old Dutch hunters or natives to the contrary. This animal is 

 still fairly numerous in many districts of South-Eastern Africa, 

 although, like its congener, the Square-mouthed lihinoceros, it has 

 been almost exterminated in the more westerly portions of the 

 country. In 1879 there were still two or three drinking in tlie 

 Upper Ghobe, to the north-west of the Sunta outlet. Between 

 the Chobe and the Zambesi there are none, and according to the 

 natives there never were any there, even when the Makololo first 

 came into the country ; but directly the Zambesi has been crossed 

 they are again found, and extend apparently through all Central 

 Africa right up to Abyssinia. The Prehensile-lipped llhinoceios 

 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 country in the neighbourhood of the Zambesi 

 to the eastward of the Victoria Falls covered almost entirely with 

 an endless succession of rugged hills, almost devoid of grass, though 

 well wooded, in all of which districts the Prehensile-lipped Rhino- 

 ceros is numerous, as it thrives well upon the scrubb}^ bush with 

 which the hill-sides and valleys are covered ; whereas tlie 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 amongst the hills themselves, which is doubtless 

 because the pasturage is too scanty to enable them to exist. ..." 



It was in the same paper that Selous very clearly showed that 

 lihinoceros keitlocf^ was simply a variety of hicornu' 



431 — 19.7.15.511. Skull and norns. August, 1883. Umsengaisi 



River, Mashonaland, Southern Ehodesia. Length of front 

 horn on outside curve 21^ ; circumference at base 19| ; 

 length of rear horn on side 12 ; circumference at base 19. 



* Proc. Zool. Soc. 1881, p. 728. 



t A. Smith, Cat. Mamm. S. African Mus. p. 7. 1837. 



g2 



