194 AFRICAN NATURE NOTES CHAP. 



relate in a subsequent chapter, a white one did the 

 same thing. On all these occasions, I think the 

 curiosity of these rhinoceroses must have been 

 aroused by the sight of the camp fires, or else the 

 smell of blood and meat must have excited them. 

 I fired into one of the black rhinoceroses as he was 

 coming very close, and drove off the other two 

 by shouting at them. 



That a certain proportion of the vanished race 

 of South African rhinoceroses of the prehensile- 

 lipped species were of a morose and savage temper, 

 and therefore dangerous animals to encounter, I 

 will not for one moment attempt to deny, for there 

 is a great deal of evidence that this was the case. 

 But what I do think is that many writers have 

 taken the character of the exceptionally vicious 

 animals they met with as typical of that of the 

 whole species. But, unless at least a very con- 

 siderable proportion of black rhinoceroses were 

 neither savage nor dangerous, I fail to understand 

 why it was that none of those that I myself en- 

 countered behaved in a manner befitting their 

 reputation ; how it has come about that the whole 

 race has been practically exterminated in South 

 Africa at so infinitesimal a cost to human life ; why 

 Gordon Gumming, who shot so many of these 

 " hideous monsters," only appears to have met 

 with two adventures both of a very mild character 

 with these animals ; and why Baldwin never 

 seemed to have the least idea that they were either 

 dangerous to attack or subject to sudden paroxysms 

 of unprovoked fury. 



Hitherto I have only spoken of the black 

 rhinoceros in South Africa ; but the testimony of 

 the most experienced hunters, in other parts of 

 the continent, seems to show that the character 

 of this animal has always been essentially the same 

 throughout its entire range. Everywhere it seems 



