THE INDIAN RHINOCEROS 



Asiatic species. Among the distinctive features of the present animal may be 

 noted the coif-like expansions of skin at the sides of the head, the large tubercles, 

 recalling the heads of the rivets in an iron boiler, on the shoulders and hind- 

 quarters, and the somewhat triangular shape of the great shield on each shoulder, 

 the fold forming the upper border of which does not extend across the back. 



By the older naturalists, rhinoceroses, elephants, and hippopotamuses were 

 grouped together under the title of pachyderms, — a name which has completely 

 dropped out of use in natural history. And very rightly, since the three groups 

 of animals brigaded together under that designation have but little in common with 

 one another. Elephants, for instance, form a group by themselves ; hippopota- 

 muses are cousins of the pigs, and thus related to deer and cattle ; while 

 rhinoceroses, together with tapirs and horses, form a third group by themselves. 



There may seem to the man in the street little in common between a great 

 lumbering brute like a rhinoceros and a Derby winner ; but the difference is due 

 solely to the one being a modern specialised type cut out solely for speed, and 

 the other an old-fashioned creature suited for wallowing in marshes or wandering 

 on open plains where it is sufficiently protected by its size and ferocity. Take 

 away the two side-toes from each foot of a rhinoceros, lengthen its limbs, lighten 

 its head and body, modify to a comparatively slight degree its cheek-teeth, and 

 replace its bare "pachydermatous" covering by a thinner, hairy skin, and we 

 should have a horse. Fortunate it is for the naturalist that such primitive 

 creatures as rhinoceroses and tapirs have survived to the present day to afford us 

 an adequate idea of what their numerous extinct relatives looked like in life. 



Rhinoceroses are purely herbivorous animals, but whereas the great Indian 

 species subsists chiefly on bamboo-leaves and other grasses, its two Asiatic relatives 

 depend more upon boughs and roots ; this difference being correlated with the 

 structure of their teeth. Producing but one offspring at a time, and that at long 

 intervals, these animals apparently live to a very great age, although by no means 

 so long as elephants. The idea that the hide of the Indian species is bullet proof 

 is altogether erroneous. 



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