THE RHINOCEROS 141 



night. And every day they roam into the forest in search of food, 

 returning in the evening to the shed in which they sleep. 



The Malayan tapir, which lives in several of the larger islands 

 of the Malay Archipelago, as well as in the south-western pro- 

 vinces of China, is very easily distinguished from its relation in 

 America, for its back and hind-quarters are almost white. Those 

 who are familiar with it in a state of freedom say that in the 

 distance it looks just as if it were wrapped in a white sheet. 

 It has no bristly mane, like the American tapir, and is rather 

 larger, with a longer trunk. The young animal, strange to say, 

 is not marked in the least like its parents, but is spotted and 

 streaked all over with yellowish fawn. 



THE RHINOCEROS 



No fewer than eight distinct kinds of Rhinoceros are known 

 to exist in different parts of the world. Four of these are found 

 in Southern Africa, and the remainder in Asia and the larger 

 islands of the Malay Archipelago. They are all very much alike 

 — great, bulky animals, smaller, it is true, than the elephant, but 

 very much larger than the tapir; with short, stout, pillar-like legs; 

 clothed in a thick, leather-like hide, so hard and tough that it will 

 flatten an ordinary leaden bullet ; and with either one or two stout 

 horns upon the front part of the head. 



These, however, are scarcely " horns " in the true sense of the 

 term. The horns of antelopes and deer, for instance, are formed 

 of a bony substance, and are connected with the skull. But those 

 of the rhinoceros are composed, not of bone, but of a hair-like 

 substance, so closely compressed as to form a solid mass. The 

 tip of the horn is always quite smooth and polished, but at the 

 base the hair-like structure can be easily seen. And if we were 

 to remove one of these horns and examine it by means of a 

 microscope, we should find that the fibres of which it is made 

 up are true hairs, although in an altered form. 



And these "horns", as we must call them for want of a better 

 name, are not connected with the skull, but are merely a growth 



