728 MR. F. c. SELOUS ON THE [June 7, 



which showed the greatest divergence of shape ; and as a series of 

 horns could be obtained showing every gradation of form between 

 the extreme form of B. oswelli (which is bent forwards) to one so 

 bent back as to describe half the arc of a circle, I do not think 

 there are any adequate grounds for considering B. oswelli to be a 

 true species. As regards the assertion that the horn of the ordinary 

 Square-mouthed Rhinoceros never attains the length of those of 

 B. oswelli, the longest horn I have ever seen was brought out by 

 a trader named Reader, and is (or M'as a few years ago) in the 

 possession of a gentleman residing iu Hope Town, in the Cape 

 colony. This horn measured 4 feet 6 inches, and had a very strong 

 curve' backwards. Upon these grounds I consider B. oswelli to be 

 a false species, and think that in future works upon natural history 

 it ought to be omitted from the list of South-African Rhinoceroses. 



I now come to the Prehensile-lipped Rhinoceros {B. bicornis), of 

 which I maintain that there is but one true species, in spite of 

 whatever may be said by old Dutch hunters and natives to the 

 contrary. This animal is still fairly numerous in many districts 

 of South-eastern Africa, although, like its congener, the Square- 

 mouthed Rhinoceros, it has been almost exterminated in the more 

 westerly portions of the country. In 1879 there were still two or 

 three drinking in the Upper Chobe, to the north-west of the Sunta 

 outlet. Between the Chobe and the Zambesi there are none ; and 

 according to the natives there never were any there, even when the 

 Makololo first came into the country ; but directly the Zambesi 

 has been crossed they are again found, and extend apparently 

 through all Central Africa right up to Abyssinia. The Prehensile- 

 lipped Rhinoceros lives exclusively upon bush and roots, eating not 

 only the young leaves as they sprout from the end of a twig, but 

 also chewing up a good deal of the twig itself. It is owing to 

 the fact that this species lives upon bush that its range is verj- much 

 more extended than that of the Square-mouthed Rhinoceros ; for there 

 are many large districts of country in the neighbourhood of the 

 Zambesi to the eastward of the Victoria Falls covered almost entirely 

 with an endless succession of rugged hills, almost devoid of grass, 

 though well wooded, in all of which districts the Prehensile-lipped 

 Rhinoceros is numerous, as it thrives well upon the scrubby bush 

 with which the hill-sides and valleys are covered ; whereas the 

 square-mouthed species, though common in the forest-clad sandbelts 

 and broad grassy valleys which always skirt the hills, is seldom 

 or never found amongst the hills themselves, which is doubtless 

 because the pasturage is too scanty to enable them to exist. 



The Prehensile-lij)ped Rhinoceros is usually represented as an 

 animal of so morose and vicious a disposition that it will almost 

 invariably attack unprovoked any man or animal that it happens 

 to meet ; and I think that the general impression of people who 

 are in the habit of reading books upon South-African sport, and 

 have had no personal experience of the animals described, must be 

 that this is the most dangerous animal to be met with iu the 

 country. 



