WILD ANIMALS IN CAPTIVITY 



He afterwards wrote : — " This animal arrived in the 

 Gardens in 1850. It was then supposed she was about one 

 year old, so that would make her about twenty-four years 

 old when she died, and the fact that an Indian animal 

 accustomed to a hot climate should live in the Regent's 

 Park such a length of time does infinite credit to the 

 management. Her gigantic carcass was placed on boards 

 on rollers, and it took twenty-five men to roll it to the 

 dissecting-house in the Gardens. The measurements of 

 the great beast were : — Total length from tip of nose to 

 tip of tail, 12 ft. 4 in. ; circumference at widest part, 12 ft.; 

 the weight was probably between two and three tons. 

 By means of pulleys the huge and ponderous skin was 

 hauled up while Mr. Gerrard separated it from the flesh. 

 The skin was of great thickness, in some places from 

 2 in. to 3 in. 



" This is the same rhinoceros whose horn was amputated 

 by the Superintendent some time since, the weight of the 

 piece weighing 11 lbs." 



Mr. Buckland wrote in Land and Water, vol. x. p. 484, 

 from information I gave him, an account of the strange 

 ice accident to the rhinoceros : 



" The animal had been turned out that morning as 

 usual into the paddock behind the elephant-hoflse while 

 the dens were being cleaned. The snow had fallen thickly 

 during the night, so that the pond was not to be dis- 

 tinguished from the ground. The rhinoceros not seeing 

 the pond put her fore-feet on the ice, which immediately 

 gave way, and in she went head over heels with a crash. 

 The keepers ran for Mr. Bartlett, the resident superin- 

 tendent ; when he came (in a few minutes) he found the 

 poor rhinoceros was floundering about among great sheets 

 of ice, under which she had probably been kept down till 

 her great strength enabled her to break up the whole 



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