No. XII. THE RHINOCEROS, HYRAX, AND 

 HIPPOPOTAMUS. 



THE RHINOCEROS is connected with the 

 elephant by a number of links, such as the 

 Tapir, in which a small and imperfect proboscis is 

 present, and the various swine, in which the pro- 

 boscis is modified into a very mobile, blunt-tipped 

 snout, with the nostrils at the extremity. Geology, 

 too, has revealed traces of many animals which are 

 now extinct upon the earth, and which render the 

 transition between these animals very much less abrupt, 

 conclusively proving their approximate position in the 

 scale of creation. 



The rhinoceros, of which several species are known, 

 is found in various parts of the African and Asiatic 

 continents, preferring those neighbourhoods in which 

 water is easily to be obtained. Although the various 

 species differ in several minor characteristics, they are 

 sufficiently alike in their chief peculiarities of structure 

 to allow of a single description sufficing for the 

 whole. 



The so-called ' horn ' is naturally the first point to at- 

 tract our attention ; and a very curious and wonderful 

 object it is. 



Notwithstanding the powerful shocks it is called 

 upon to bear, and its uses as a weapon of offence, it is 

 not in any way connected with the skull, as is almost 

 universally imagined to be the case. It is, in fact, 



