1881.] MR. SELOUS ON THE SOUTH-AFRICAN RHINOCEROSES, 725 



6. On the South-African Rhinoceroses. By F. C. Selous. 

 (Communicated by Dr. A. Gunther, F.R.S. &c.) 



[Eeceived May 21, 1881.] 



(Plate LXII.) 



In those portions of Southern and South Central Africa in which 

 I have hunted I have only met with two true species of Rhinoceroses — 

 namely the large, square-mouthed, grass-eating species (Rhinoceros 

 simus), and the smaller prehensile-lipped Rhinoceros, which feeds 

 exclusively upon bush (S. bicornis). In making this statement I 

 am well aware that I express an opinion at variance with that held 

 by many naturalists upon the subject ; however, as the conclusions 

 at which I have arrived are the results of eight years devoted entirely 

 to hunting in the most out-of-the-way portions of the interior of 

 South Africa, during the first three of which (that is, in 1872, 1873, 

 and 1874) Rhinoceroses were still very plentiful, and as even since 

 that time I have had many opportunities of personally observing the 

 habits and peculiarities of each and every variety of these animals, 

 and as, moreover, I shall support my views by specimens of horns, I 

 think that I am warranted in expressing an opinion upon the sub- 

 ject. At any rate it is now quite time that the question of how 

 many species of Rhinoceroses do really exist in South Africa should 

 be finally set at rest ; and it is only by comparing the statements of 

 men who are really competent to give an opinion upon the subject 

 that this is ever likely to be done. 



For my part I am fully persuaded that there are only two species 

 in South Africa, or, indeed, in all Africa ; for the North-African 

 Rhinoceros in the gardens of this Society I have no hesitation 

 in pronouncing to be specifically identical with the South-African 

 Prehensile-lipped Rhinoceros. 



I will first speak of the Square-mouthed Rhinoceros {B. simus). 

 Twenty years ago this animal seems to have been very plentiful in 

 the western half of Southern Africa : now, unless it is still to be 

 found between the Okavango and (^lunene rivers, it must be almost 

 extinct in that portion of the country. And this is not to be won- 

 dered at when one reads the accounts in Andersson's and Chapman's 

 books of their shooting as many as eight of these animals in one 

 night as they were drinking at a small water-hole ; for it must be 

 remembered that these isolated water-holes, at the end of the dry 

 season, represented all the water to be found over an enormous 

 extent of country, and that therefore all the Rhinoceroses that in 

 happier times were distributed over many hundreds of square miles 

 were in times of drought dependent upon perhaps a single pool for 

 their supply of water. In 1877, during several months' hunting in 

 the country to the south of Linyanti, on the river Chobe, I only saw 

 the spoor of two Square-mouthed Rhinoceroses, though in 1874 I had 

 found them fairly plentiful in the same district ; whilst in 1879, during 



