by F. Vaughan-Kirby. 231 
bull secured in the Reserve last winter for the Natal Museum. He 
was certainly a most savage dispositioned creature, for he made a very 
vicious attack when unwounded. 
In a more or less sweeping manner, the statement has been made, 
and thoroughly believed, that the black rhinoceros is an exceedingly 
savage beast, a perfect “devil incarnate” in fact, that charges upon 
little or no provocation, while the white species is harmless and 
inoffensive. I do not at all agree with this sweeping denunciation of 
the black rhinoceros, and, while admitting that it frequently acts in 
an uncontrollably savage manner when wounded, and even when un- 
wounded will charge most viciously if surprised at close quarters, I am 
certain that a large percentage of cases recorded of the animal charging, 
when itself unwounded, and not interfered with, are either much 
exaggerated or have been misunderstood. The exaggeration is not in- 
tentional perhaps, but is indulged in by those who believe they have 
related the circumstances accurately, and have only erred from want 
of wider experience of the creature’s habits. | Nervousness, lack of 
intelligence, and extreme curiosity (in both sexes) have a great deal 
more to do with the apparent truculence of the animal than natural 
aggressiveness. 
It is well-known that a black rhinoceros will invariably advance 
towards a person or object that he is not able to make out properly, 
sometimes coming to very close quarters. This, in the writer’s 
experience, the white rhinoceros never does. 
The white rhinoceros is apparently of a far more sociable disposition 
than the black species, as it is frequently to be met with in parties 
of five or six in number, but if these are disturbed, it will be noticed 
that they usually separate and go off in different directions, two or 
three together, indicating that their being together was a more or less 
fortuitous circumstance, perhaps due to the discovery of some mutually 
satisfactory bit of grazing. It is, however, more usual to meet with a 
pair, or a family party of three or four. The latter would include an 
adult bull and a cow, a large calf, probably three parts grown, and a 
young animal six or eight months old. The writer has never met with 
two adult animals of one sex together, as he has frequently seen in the 
case of the black species, but a cow and calf without the bull are often 
seen together, and there are two or three bulls, solitary creatures, in 
the Reserve. 
White rhinoceroses in Zululand (the following remarks will be un- 
derstood to refer to this animal in Zululand, unless otherwise indicated) 
prefer a mud bath to bathing in clear water, though whether that is 
