418 THE COMMON INDIAN RHINOCEROS. 



long time almost wholly immersed. On these occasions another 

 of his delights is to wallow in the mud. Basking in the sun, 

 with his huge frame lolling on the margin of his bath, where 

 the clayey soil has been trampled into mud by the elephant's 

 feet and his own ; now rolling his little eyes around, as if to 

 survey all about him , now closing them in tranquil slumber, 

 he presents a picture of thorough epicurean enjoyment. He 

 quietly suffers himself to be driven from his den to the bath, 

 but he is not easily induced to leave the water, or his muddy 

 resting-place j and it requires no little management to get him 

 into the passage to his own apartment : not that he offers any 

 violent resistance, but he avoids, as long as possible, all efforts 

 to entrap him between the railings, and at last proceeds re- 

 luctantly. The quietness of his temper is, however, not a little 

 remarkable ; hitherto he has exhibited no paroxysms of rage, 

 but is inoffensive, happy, and contented. He neither pines nor 

 evinces impatience in his captivity. To eat, drink, and sleep, 

 to roll in the mud, or luxuriate in his bath on a fine sunny 

 day, constitute the sum total of his felicity. He passes 

 about fourteen hours a day in repose, and is generally lively in 

 the afternoon and evening. During one of his ebullitions of 

 sportiveness, he managed, by repeated blows with his horn, to 

 break some of the thick boards which line the walls of his den, 

 and would have continued his mischief if he had not been timely 

 interrupted. On another occasion of his exuberant mirth, when 

 his keeper was in the den, he nearly squeezed the man to death 

 in his unwieldy play. Thrusting at him, the animal followed 

 up a regular attack, and at length fairly pinned him in a corner 

 against the wall, driving the horn forcibly against his chest. 

 The man's cries for assistance led the other keepers to the spot, 

 and he was rescued from his perilous situation ; but it was 

 sometime before he recovered from the effects of the bruises 

 he had received from his rough playmate."* 



The female rhinoceros goes with young from seventeen to 

 eighteen months, and produces one at a birth. When first 

 * Abridged from The Menageries (1840), vol. iii. p. 2733. 



