EHINOCEROS CALVES. 281 



Gumming relates a similar instance on the part of 

 a rhinoceros calf. After telling us he was recon- 

 noitring the forest in search of wounded game, he 

 goes on to say : 



" When I had proceeded a little further the dogs 

 ran forward, and next moment a rush of many feet 

 was heard charging towards where I stood ; it was 

 a troop of half-grown lions, with a lioness, which 

 dashed past me, followed by the dogs. They had 

 been feasting on a white rhinoceros I had wounded 

 two nights previously, now lying a little ahead. 

 Beside the carcass stood a fine fat calf. The poor 

 thing, no doubt fancying that its mother slept, had, 

 heedless of lions and the other wild animals that 

 had feasted there, remained beside its dead dam for 

 a day and two nights. Rhinoceros calves," he 

 goes on to say, " always stick to their mothers long 

 after they are dead." 



The African elephant is, I believe, equally docile 

 as the Indian when domesticated, but we have no 

 account of a negro tribe that have ever tamed one 

 of these sagacious animals their only maxim, as 

 some one truly says, is " kill and eat." 



Young elephants have, however, often been kept 

 in confinement in Africa, by the colonists and others, 

 but, for some reason or other, they do not seem to 

 thrive. They linger awhile, and then die. An 

 acquaintance of mine had one for a considerable pe- 

 riod, which was extremely amusing and interesting. 

 A favourite trick of his consisted in pushing his 

 head between a person's legs, which usually ended 

 in a tremendous somersault on the part of the 



