The Elephant, Tapir, Hyrax, and Rhinoceros 187 



the north-western districts of the Cape Colony to Abyssinia, and at that time it must have 

 been plentiful over almost the whole of the intervening country. It never seems to have 

 penetrated into the equatorial forest regions of West Central Africa, where the climate is 

 probably too damp to suit its requirements ; for both species of African rhinoceros appear to 

 like a dry climate, and not to object to very arid surroundings. At the same time they never 

 wander many miles from a river or pool, and drink regularly every night, and in hot weather 

 probably very often a second time in the early morning. 



In Southern Africa the black rhinoceros appears to attain to a larger size than in the 

 countries farther north To the south of the Zambesi large bulls of this species will stand 

 5 feet 8 inches at the shoulder ; whilst the height of an adult bull, as taken by Mr. F. 

 Jackson at Naivasha, in East Africa, was 5 feet 5 inches ; and Mr. A. H. Neumann gives the 

 standing height of another adult bull shot by himself still farther north, near Lake Kudolph, 

 as only 4 feet 9 inches. 



It is now gener- 

 ally recognised that 

 there is but one species 

 of prehensile-lipped 

 rhinoceros in Africa, 

 though the horns, and 

 especially the hinder 

 one, differ in length 

 and shape to such an 

 extent that it was long 

 thought that there 

 were at least two 

 distinct species, those 

 with both horns of 

 equal or nearly equal 

 length having been 

 distinguished from the 

 more common form, 

 with a comparatively 

 short second horn, as 

 the KEITLOA, this 

 being the name in 

 the Sechuana dialect 

 for a prehensile-lipped 



rhinoceros with horns of equal length. Speaking on this subject, Mr. A. H. Neumann, who 

 has had great experience with the black rhinoceros in East Africa, writes : " Length of horn 

 is a purely fortuitous individual trait ; and the extremely long horns (mostly of females) which 

 have occasionally been obtained from traders on the east coast, and brought home, are merely 

 exceptionally fine specimens, selected from among large numbers brought to the coast (the bulk 

 of which, I am told, go to China to be ground up into medicine), and do not belong to any 

 distinct species, nor come from any particular region. In proof of this contention I may 

 mention that I have a 40-inch horn, the owner of which I myself shot at the northern base 

 of the Jambeni Range (near Kenia), in a neighbourhood where I hunted a great deal and saw 

 great numbers of rhinos, and shot a good many. The vast majority have quite short horns 

 under a foot and anything over 18 inches is uncommon, while a length of 30 inches or 

 upwards is extremely rare." The black rhinoceros, I believe, never eats grass, but browses on 

 the young shoots of trees and bushes, which are often quite leafless and seem excessively 

 dry. In this way it chews up and swallows great quantities of dry-looking twigs, much of 

 which passes through its stomach undigested. 



Photo by Korman B. Smith, Esq. 



BLACK AFRICAN RHINOCEROS. 

 This photograph, taken by a sportsman in Africa, shows a charging rhinoceros just before it was shot. 



