THE RHINOCEROS. 



can be more terrible. He fays likewife, that a Rhinoceros lifted up a Bear, 

 with his two horns (a), as ealily as a Bull would a football. 



The Rhinoceros is likewife mentioned during the reigns of Antoninus Pius, 

 and Heliogabulus ; but, after the decline of the Roman Empire, no more 

 mention is made of it, till the year 1515, when one is faid to have combated 

 an Elephant at Lifbon, under the reign of King Emmanuel, and to have killed 

 the Elephant. Some were afterwards brought to Portugal and Spain, and 

 one at length made its appearance in London, in the years 1084 and 1085, 

 and another fome years after ; but there is no mention of any having reached 

 either Germany or France till the year 1748, when one was exhibited at 

 Paris ; it was brought from the province of Acham, in the dominions of the 

 King of Ava(B), was very tame, gentle, and even careffing. It was continually 

 eating hay, bread, fruit, peas, and beans, and in Ihort every thing that was 

 given it, except nlh and flefh, which it would not touch. The keeper faid 

 it confumed daily flxty pounds of hay and twenty pounds of bread, and drank 

 fourteen pails of water ; but this account feems rather exaggerated. It was 

 very fond of the fmoke of tobacco, and appeared much pleafed when it was 

 blown into its nofe and mouth. It was much delighted with lharp prickly- 

 plants and thorny branches of trees. " I have often given it," fays father 

 Le Compte, " branches with very lharp and ftrong thorns on them, and have 

 been furprifed at the addrefs with which it bent and broke them in its mouth, 

 without feeming to be in the lean: incommoded by them : it is true they 

 fometimes drew blood from the mouth and tongue ; but perhaps that even 

 rendered them more palatable, and thofe little wounds ferved only to caufe a 

 fenfation limilar to what is excited by fait, pepper, &c. on ours." This 

 circumftance has probably given rife to the fabulous ftory, that the tongue is 

 as rough as a file ; whereas, on the contrary, it refembles much the tongue 

 of a Hog, and is as foft as velvet to the touch. 



(a) Commentators have been much perplexed to explain this paffage in Martial, and have even fufpecled 

 fome error in the text; whereas it is evident the poet means the two-horned Rhinoceros, one of which was 

 probably then at Rome, as it is reprefented on a coin of Domitian, under whofe reign Martial lived. Phil. 

 Tran. xi. gi3. 



(b) Blomart. Di£t Rais. des Anim. 



