26 ANIMAL LIFE IN AFRICA 



CHAPTER III 



RHINOCEROSES 



THE WHITE RHINOCEROS. The English name for this, 

 the largest of all African land mammals after the elephant, 

 is misleading, there being in colour very little difference 

 between it and the more widely distributed black 

 rhinoceros. 



" The head is very long and massive ; upper lip straight 

 all round, with no trace of a proboscis ; nostrils are 

 elongated slits parallel to the mouth ; ears longer and 

 more pointed than in the other species, springing from 

 a closed cylinder about three inches long ; tail as in 

 the black variety, but only the last quarter provided 

 with wiry bristles. The front horn is situate on the 

 nasal bones, longer and more slender than in the other 

 species, curved gently backwards, and the upper part 

 of the front usually flattened by friction against the 

 ground ; the rear horn is usually short, straight, conical 

 and somewhat laterally flattened. Both horns vary a 

 good deal in length and shape." (Schlater.) 



This splendid beast, which attains a height of over 

 six feet six inches at the shoulder, was once extremely 

 plentiful in many parts of South Africa, between the 

 Orange River and the Zambezi ; but is now probably 

 extinct south of the latter river, with the exception of 

 some fifteen preserved in Zululand. Two of these were 

 killed by natives in 1902, but, with this exception, they 

 have been unmolested for a good many years. Until 

 1900 it was believed that the species did not exist north 

 of the Zambezi, but in that year Major Gibbons, at the 

 conclusion of his great march from the Barotse country, 

 and while awaiting a steamer to take him down the Nile, 



