THE RHINOCEROS. 469 



cutting-teeth " (lower canines) " that they wound so desperately. I 

 killed a large male," this writer asserts, " which was cut and slashed all 

 over its body with fighting ; the wounds were all fresh, and as cleanly 

 made as if they had been done with a razor — the horn could not have 

 been used here." Another one he had wounded halted and, out of pure 

 rage, cut at the jungle right and left, exactly as a boar uses his tusks. 

 "A medical friend's servant, who was sauntering through the forest, was 

 actually disemboweled by a Rhinoceros. He examined the wound im- 

 mediately, and I heard him say afterward that if it had been done with 

 the sharpest instrument, it could not have been cleaner cut. This could 

 not have been done with the horn." 



The extraordinary irritability of the Rhinoceros conceals in a great 

 degree its real intelligence. While far inferior to the elephant, it yet is 

 superior to most of the ruminants ; and in captivity soon learns to know 

 its keeper, and submit to his wishes. We still, however, know too little 

 of the animal in its wild life. The female defends its young at all 

 hazards. A hunter in India discovered a female with its young one ; 

 the mother rose up and slowly retired, pushing the little one before her 

 with her snout. The hunter rode up and made a cut at her with his 

 sabre, but the weapon only left a few white marks on the solid hide. 

 The mother endured patiently all his blows till her offspring was safe in 

 the bush. Then she turned, gnashing her teeth, on the assailant. His 

 horse had the sense to run away, the Rhinoceros pursued, smashing and 

 crashing through all obstacles. When she reached the hunter's attend- 

 ants, she charged them too, and when they climbed some trees, she 

 attacked them ; the huge trunks quivered under the blows of the enraged 

 beast, which was finally shot in the head. A young Rhinoceros was born 

 on board a ship in London in 1872, but, to the great loss of science, it 

 died in three or four days, deeply lamented by Mr. Bartlett. 



Pliny's remark about the hostility of the Rhinoceros and the Elephant 

 is a mere fable, of course. But if the Rhinoceros has no hereditary 

 enemy, it has an hereditary friend. All African travelers relate that the 

 Borele is attended by a small bird which lives on the parasitic insects 

 abounding on its patron's ample hide, and which wakens him from slum- 

 ber when danger draws nigh. "They are his best Iriends," writes 

 Gordon Cumming, " and seldom fail to rouse him. I have often chased 

 a Rhinoceros for miles, and during the chase the birds sat upon his back. 

 When I put a ball into his shoulder, they fluttered about six feet above 



