THE SPORTSMAN IN SOUTH AFRICA. 63 



a length exceeding the anterior, both being round; nostrils ?-ound; 

 eyes situated low down and forwards. Spoor exhibits the impression 

 of the three toes pointing almost directly forwards.^ 



The general understanding that there were four distinct varieties of 

 Rhinoceros inhabiting South Africa, viz., the R. simus, R. oswelli, 

 R. keitloa, and R. bicornis^ seems to have been first disputed by 

 Mr, F. C. Selous in a very interesting paper read by him before 

 the Zoological Society in June, 1881, and no matter how opinions 

 mav differ, it is now commonly accepted that there are but the 

 two, the Black Rhinoceros (i?. bicornis) and the White Rhinoceros 

 (/?. simus)^ although, most unfortunately, it is believed that the 

 latter has become extinct within the last five or six years. The 

 presumption that there were four varieties was erroneously based on 

 the development and different shape of the horns in individual 

 animals. The range of the Black Rhinoceros South of the Zambesi 

 is limited to the hilly and broken country along that river East of 

 the Victoria Falls, where it is still found rather plentifully. Two 

 years ago it was very common throughofit Mashonaland, but is now 

 almost driven out, only being met with in far-away places remote 

 from the prospectors. A fair number still remain in the unfre- 

 quented parts of Matabeleland, particularly in the portion which 

 Lobengula calls his preserve ; and in the low-lying country on the 

 East Coast about Sofala Bay it is said to be continually come across, 

 a few, perhaps, being still left North of the Chobe. 



Blood-curdling stories have been repeated, ad nauseam., as to the 

 morose, revengeful, and indescribable ferocity of this Rhinoceros; 

 sufficient, indeed, to deter the most courageous and enterprising 

 spirits from even partaking of a distant view of a country inhabited 

 by such monsters. When truth is separated from fiction, it will 

 be found that these narratives are merely the result of very strong 

 imagination on the part of those who recount them. This animal 

 is possessed of a very limited power of vision but very perfect organs 

 of smell ; and the so-called headlong charges attributed to it may 

 generally be presumed to be occasioned more by a confused idea of 

 some danger being at hand, without exactly knowing its direction 

 and a desire at all hazards to escape from it, than to the actual 

 disposition for devastation and annihilation for which it gets 

 credit. Of course, accidents do and will occasionally occur in 

 encounters with them, but the dangers attending their chase is 



