RHINOCEROS SHOOTING 167 



personal knowledge Mr. Blyth's principal informant had a 

 weakness for relating shikar stories which were frequently 

 good, but not always authentic. 1 



I was fortunate enough, during my five years' sojourn in the 

 Ruby Mines district, to come across four of these animals, 

 three of which I succeeded in getting. I had also many 

 opportunities, when spending my short leave out in camp, of 

 studying the habits of these ungainly mammalia. They are 

 not easy to find, and are always very timid and shy, but when 

 found they are easily stalked and killed, provided you are 

 armed with a heavy rifle. They are capable, when alarmed, of 

 dashing away through the densest jungle at a great pace, and 

 often travel for many miles over the roughest country before 

 they come to a halt. Mud-wallows, swampy ground, and 

 dark, damp, cool jungles amongst the hills, up to an elevation 

 of 4000 feet, are the spots they usually frequent. (I found them 

 at the base of the Arrakan range, near Cape Negrais, at a 

 very slight elevation only. F. T. P.) 



Three or four animals may sometimes be found in one 

 locality within a mile or so of each other. But as a rule they 

 are solitary ; I have on one occasion come across two females 

 wallowing in the same mud-hole. 



These mud-holes are usually found at the source of some 

 small stream, where the soil is swampy, or of a clayey nature. 

 A spring or a marshy piece of ground by some stream is often 

 utilized in the same manner, and one rhinoceros may have 

 two or three wallows, or mud-holes, which he visits in turn : 

 principally during the months of May, June, July, and 

 August. 



The sportsman will be notified of the near vicinity of a 

 wallow by the caked mud which has been rubbed off the 

 rhino's body by the bushes and tree-trunks as the anima\ 

 passes. 



Should the rhino be in his mud-bath, the sportsman will 

 sometimes be made aware of the fact by hearing peculiar, low, 



1 I do not agree in this statement. Mr. Blyth to my certain knowledge 

 was a most painstaking and able naturalist, and did not accept all he 

 heard, but most Karens and Burmese assert that this rhinoceros rushes 

 at a fire and scatters it. F. T. P. 



