Appendix 299 



But as things are at present nothing can be done. It is 

 as useless to try to capture elephants with rifle-shots as it is 

 to catch flies with vinegar. 



EHINOCEKOS (Rhinoceros bicornis) 



RHINOCEROS. Its gradual disappearance Its last places of refuge Supposed 

 age Signs by which one can recognise it Size of adults Measurement 

 of horns Horns of the young Use of the horns Torn ears Degree of 

 acuteness of senses Favourite places and plants Habits Method of 

 sleeping Accidents caused by rhinoceros. 



I said just now that the African elephant is bound to 

 disappear in a century or so if we continue to shoot it. The 

 rhinoceros is much nearer extinction ; it has one foot in the 

 grave ! Its congener, the Simus, has already disappeared ; 

 the bicorn will do the same by virtue of that law of nature 

 which reduces the size of men and animals as time proceeds, 

 causing insensibly to disappear from our planet giants 

 which existed in large numbers during the tertiary, glacial, 

 and quaternary periods. 



Apart from its destruction by man, the causes of the 

 gradual disappearance of the rhinoceros seem to me to be its 

 slowness in breeding and its fierce habits, which do not 

 accord with the encroachment of human populations, for no 

 sooner is a country inhabited than it leaves it. Certainly a 

 large number of rhinoceros were very uselessly sacrificed 

 formerly. Hundreds were killed in a few months, at various 

 intervals, between 1824 and 1879 by expeditions in South 

 Africa, and from 1880 to 1890 in Eastern Africa. Every- 

 where the natives wage war upon it with the simple object 

 of procuring food, and there is nothing that some will not 

 do to get this kind of flesh. Many thousands of elephants 

 and rhinoceros must have been killed all over the continent. 

 Thus the places where it is still found can be counted almost 

 on the fingers of one hand. These are the eastern boundary 



