CHAP. ii. RHINOCEROS. 127 



and this, as far as the difference in their length goes, has 

 been the average of those I have seen, except in one pair 

 (unique in my experience) where the hind one was slightly 

 the longer. 



Generally speaking, the habits of the different species 

 are the same, slightly diversified by their peculiar charac- 

 teristics. Leaving their lair about four o'clock in the 

 afternoon, or later if the district is much disturbed by 

 human beings, they graze towards water, or, if of the black 

 species, browse on the thorn shoots in their way, reaching 

 it soon before or after dark, distance sometimes deferring 

 their arrival till a later hour, and if it is a mud-hole, they 

 probably have a roll after drinking. They then start for 

 their favourite feeding-ground, a rich grass bottom in the 

 case of R. simus, the dense ukaku thickets in the case of 

 the other three, keeping along the regular beaten paths in 

 doing so, which they make all over the country, and which 

 they make use of night after night. After generally, 

 though not always, watering again about daylight, they 

 retire to their sleeping-places sooner or later, according to 

 what extent the country is free from human beings, reach- 

 ing it at any rate before the heat of the day. This is 

 always in an extremely sheltered and deeply shaded spot, 

 and so heavily do they slumber, that a practised stalker 

 could almost touch them with the muzzle of his gun, unless 

 alarmed by the birds which accompany them in search of 

 ticks. I do not, however, consider it a good plan to fire 

 at a rhinoceros lying down, from the difficulty "of judging 

 exactly how your bullet will penetrate, and now, after 

 many unavailing attempts, I always rouse them first an 

 easy thing to do, for on the breaking of a twig, or a cough, 



