278 A COLONY IN THE MAKING chap. 



worse! Luckily, they are not slow to take the 

 hint that their room is preferable to their company, 

 and are very easily banished. Thus practically 

 all the open plain in the Highlands used to 

 be infested with rhino, and notably all the open 

 country round Nairobi. Nowadays it is quite the 

 exception to come across rhino in the open, though 

 the surrounding bushland may be full of them. Rhino 

 are usually found singly, in which case it is probably a 

 bull ; or in pairs, in which case they are generally a cow 

 and calf ; or in threes, a bull, a cow, and a calf. Larger 

 parties are sometimes seen, but I cannot personally 

 recall more than five standing together. Their 

 favourite food is young mimosa thorn coming up in 

 the grass, or boughs taken from trees of the same 

 variety. They do not care for grass, of which they 

 eat but little. Those who aver that they have seen 

 rhinoceros browsing vigorously off grass on the plain 

 would very often find on examination that it is the 

 young thorns amongst the grass that have suffered. 

 The mother suckles its young for three years, and one 

 can accordingly understand how long-lived and there- 

 fore easily exterminated the race is. To the great 

 satisfaction of all concerned, each year sees less 

 rhinoceros on the more traversed routes. There need 

 be no fear whatever for his absolute extermination, as 

 there are large tracts of forest and almost impenetrable 

 bush in which he can exist and where to hunt him will 

 be a sport dangerous and genuine enough for anyone. 

 Large horns are very rare nowadays, or at all events 

 hard to obtain. The longest are nearly always 

 possessed by cows, those of the males being the more 

 massive. Outside thick cover it is to-day hard to 

 obtain a horn of more than 22 or 23 inches. 



