998 The White Rhinoceros in Zululand 
animals, and it is to be feared that the necessity for absolute accuracy 
has not always been borne in mind. Although I have met with 
innumerable instances of this, IT would perhaps have hesitated to call 
into question the accuracy of measurements recorded by other fine 
sportsmen, but for the fact that since this article was roughly drafted 
T have had an opportunity of perusing Mr. Edmund Heller’s work 
upon the white rhinoceros of the Nile region. And I find that the 
conclusions arrived at by that obviously careful naturalist so exactly 
correspond with my own upon the subject of the size of the white 
rhinoceros, that I have no longer any hesitation in putting forward 
ascertained facts, in order that some of the present misunderstanding 
may be swept aside. 
Much stress has been laid upon the alleged statement that the white 
rhinoceros is, after the elephant, the largest of living terrestrial 
mammals, having been said to attain a height at the shoulder of 6 ft. 
9 in., ie., only 2 ft. 9 in., less than a fair average-sized elephant. Now 
the writer is fully prepared to admit that with its huge bulk, its 
greatly elongated head, and enormous muscular development of the 
fore-arm, it appears when seen in the veld, incomparably larger than 
the black rhinoceros. But it will surprise many to learn that after all 
the average height of a white rhinoceros bull exceeds an average 
specimen of the black species by less than a foot. 
Mr. Heller writes of the former, “In size this species (/. simus) 
exceeds but slightly, if at all, the great Indian single-horned species 
(RK. unicornis) and but little the black African species.” And again 
‘The superiority in size of the white rhinoceros over the other living 
species, however, is not at all well established.” 
Now to proceed to data. We find that in the Proceedings of the 
Zoological Society of London, 1881, page 726, the late Mr. F. C. Selous 
gives the standing height of the white rhinoceros as 6 ft. 6 in. ; Corn- 
wallis Harris gives from 6 ft. 6 in. to 6 ft. 8in., and R. T. Coryndon 
states that the two bulls which he shot in Mashonaland, one for the 
British Mtseum and the other for the Tring Museum, measured 
6 ft. 6in. and 6 ft. 9in. respectively. 
It will be admitted that a mounted specimen will show at least a 
height equal to that of the animal in the flesh, and usually something 
over, and yet the last two specimens above-mentioned measured by 
Mr. Heller when they were mounted, give heights of 5 ft. 10 in. and 
6 ft. 2in., a difference of 8 in. less in the one case, and 7 in. less in the 
other between the flesh measurements as given and those of the 
mounted specimens. In addition to these two, Mr. Heller measured 
