The White Rhinoceros 61 



get a good chance of shooting him through the lungs or heart as he came 

 broadside past. 



The white rhinoceros always appeared to me an easy animal to kill. 

 A shot through the upper part of the heart was soon fatal. The lungs, 

 too, were remarkably large, and a white rhinoceros shot through 

 both lungs usually succumbed very quickly. If only wounded in one 

 lung, however, or shot too far back behind the lungs, I came to the 

 conclusion that it was of very little use following up a white rhinoceros, 

 as I found from experience that these animals, if they did not succumb 

 to their wounds within a short distance, were likely to travel for many 

 miles before dying or coming to a halt. With a broken hind-leg, neither a 

 white nor a black rhinoceros can run at all, but I have seen an example 

 of both species run a mile with a broken shoulder, going off first at a 

 gallop on the three sound legs, and then slowing down to a halting kind 

 of trot. 



When feeding, a white rhinoceros had necessarily to hold its mouth 

 near the ground, as it ate nothing but grass, which at certain seasons of 

 the year was very short, and white rhinoceroses were as fond of young 

 grass as are all other species of grazing animals. And not only when 

 feeding, but at all other times also, did the white rhinoceros hold its 

 head low. When walking, trotting, or galloping, its great square nose 

 was always close to the ground, and if the animal carried a straight 

 horn over 2i feet in length, or one slightly bent forward, as it was in 

 some instances, the point of the anterior surface got worn flat by constant 

 contact with the ground. A white rhinoceros calf always walked in 

 front of its mother, and she apparently guided it with the point of her 

 horn, which seemed to rest on the calf's hind-quarters. It always struck 

 me as most remarkable how, in all changes of pace, however sudden, this 

 position seemed to be invariably maintained. This mode of procedure 

 evidently struck that observant sportsman, the late Roualeyn Gordon- 



