CHAPTER XVI, 

 RHINOCEROS-SHOOTING. 



THE rhinoceros met with in Uganda and British East 

 Africa is the common black "rhinoceros bicornis," 

 i.e. "the two-horned rhino." I have heard of "freaks" 

 with three and even five horns, but I have never seen 

 one of them. The Indian rhino has only one horn ; it also 

 differs in having huge massive folds of skin, which make it look 

 as if clad in a coat-of-mail, like a battle-horse of the Middle 

 Ages. Notwithstanding the absence of these folds, the skin of 

 the African rhino is more than an inch thick along the back and 

 sides ; and over the abdomen, where it is comparatively thin, it 

 is fully half an inch. An extinct two-horned species of rhino, 

 discovered in the ice-fields of Siberia along with the extinct 

 mammoth, had a shaggy coat of long wool ; but the present 

 African representatives of these antediluvian rhinos and ele- 

 phants have practically a naked skin, with the exception of the 

 tip of the tail, which is fringed with long bristles. 



The Indian rhino is said to live in marshy jungles and to be 

 fond of wallowing in the mud ; but where I have encountered most 

 frequently the African rhino, has been on treeless grassy plains, 

 though sometimes I have met with it in bush-covered tracts. 



Whereas hippos and elephants love to congregate together 

 in herds, the rhinos prefer roaming singly or in pairs. Once 

 only did I see three rhinos together ; it was quite a model 

 family, consisting of father, mother, and child. But generally 

 the bull goes off by himself on his lonely travels, and leaves the 

 cow to look after her calf. The cow has never more than one 

 calf at a time. She takes care of her calf till it is almost full- 

 grown. The cow has the domestic element largely developed, 

 for I have always met her accompanied either by her young 

 calf or by an adult bull. 



