^^ THE SELOUS COLLECTION. 



from Lado ; the latter form differs in having a flatter skull and 

 smaller teeth. The longest horn on record of the South African 

 race is 62 1 inches in length. 



Typical locality, Cape Colony ; range formerly extended over the 

 gr(>ater j)art of Africa south of the Zambesi. As a wild animal 

 the South African White lihinoceros is now extinct, a few still 

 survive in a semi-wild state under Government protection. 



Writing in the 3^ear 1881 concerning the White lihinoceros 

 Selous states as follows * : — " . . . Twenty years ago this animal 

 seems to have been very plentiful in the western half of Southern 

 Africa ; now, unless it is still to be found between the Okavango 

 and Cunene riv^ers, it must be almost extinct in that portion of 

 tlie country. And this is not to be wondered at, when one reads 

 the accounts in Andersson's and Chapman's books of their shooting 

 as many as eight of these animals in one night, as they were 

 drinking at a small Avater-hole ; for it must be remembered that 

 these isolated water-holes, at the end of the dry season, represented 

 all the water to be found over an enormous extent of country, and 

 that therefore all the rhinoceroses that in happier times were dis- 

 tributed over many hundreds of square miles were in times of 

 drought dependent upon perhaps a single pool for their supply of 

 water. In 1877, during sevei-al months' hunting in the country to 

 the south of Linyanti, on the river Chobe, I only saw the spoor of 

 two Square-mouthed Ehinoceroses, though in 1874 1 had found 

 them fairly plentiful in the same district ; whilst in 1879, during 

 eight months spent in hunting on and between the Botletlie, 

 Mababe, Machabe, Sunta, and Upper Chobe rivers, 1 never saw 

 the spoor of one of these animals, and all the Bushmen I met with 

 said they were finished. In 1878 and 1880, however, I still found 

 them fairly numerous in a small tract of country in North-eastern 

 Mashuna Land, between the Umniati and Hanyane rivers. Their 

 range, however, is i-ather limited towards the north, as they only 

 inhabit the country lying to the south of the belt of rough stony 

 hills which in this district extend for more than a hundred miles 

 southwards from the banks of the Zambesi river. Their exter- 

 mination in this portion of the countr}^ may therefore, I am afraid, 



* Proc. Zool. Soc. 1881, p. 725. 



