236 The White Rhinoceros in Zululand 
the droppings of one or more animals during a period of probably 
two or three months, in fact a white rhinoceros had visited the spot 
the morning of the day upon which we pitched camp there. In 
another place on a hog-backed ridge running off from the Imbulungu 
Hills, four similar, though shallower, basins had been scooped out, 
roughly about 8 yards equidistant from each other, but in distinctly 
harder soil, and these had been visited many times by white 
rhineceroses. During the week we spent at a camp near by, only one 
of these holes was used, and on each occasion by but one animal, the 
only one in the immediate vicinity, a solitary bull. 
On the other hand, their droppings may be found in all manner of 
different places, on ridges, in valleys, in dense bush, where no hole has 
been made or previously made hole used, and where the places have 
not been re-visited. On a high open ridge running south from the 
Amantiyane Hills an area of ground some 20 or 30 yards square was 
covered at quite close intervals with heaps of white rhinoceros dung. 
Although never able to detect anything but grass in their droppings, 
I have wondered whether perhaps these animals sometimes eat the 
‘‘ihlehle” cactus leaves, because they undoubtedly do assimilate a 
certain quantity of leaves of low-growing ground plants which they 
take in their mouths along with the grass. 
The black species eats the ihlehle greedily, as also do buffalo, kudu, 
bushbuck, and bushpigs. 
White rhinoceroses, like all other game animals are very partial to 
the young grass which springs up after the old grass has been burnt off. 
Although their spoor was frequently met with on freshly burnt 
ground, yet I never saw any indication of their having rolled in the 
ash, as the black species delights to do. 
Their powers of sight are extremely limited, so much so that at 100 
yards it is very questionable whether a slowly moving object can be 
seen by them, and this feebleness of sight is quite apart from a certain 
amount of obstruction of vision due to the position of the anterior 
horn. At 50 yards even they are unable definitely to make out a 
slow moving object, such as, for instance, a person stalking towards 
them, stooping when in the open and occasionally hidden behind 
bushes. 
Stationary objects must be between 25 and 30 yards distant before 
the animal can plainly distinguish them, but with ordinary care, and 
provided that the animal has not recently been disturbed, it is really a 
very simple matter to approach them to even less than 20 yards. 
