NO. I 



THE WHITE RHINOCEROS HELLER 



51 



ordinary horns. Five of them were in one party, and were much 

 agitated by the approach of the men ; they ran to and fro, their tails 

 twisted into the usual pig-like curl, and from sheer nervous stupidity 

 bade fair at one .time to force the hunters to fire in self-defence. 

 Finally, however, they all ran off. In the case of a couple of others 

 a curious incident happened. When alarmed they failed to make out 

 where the danger lay, and after running away a short distance they 

 returned to a bush nearby to look about. One remained standing, 

 but .the other deliberately sat down upon its haunches like a dog, 

 staring ahead, Kermit meanwhile being busy with his camera. Two 

 or three times I saw rhino, when aroused from sleep, thus sit up on 

 their haunches and look around before rising on all four legs ; but this 

 was the only time that any of us saw a rhino which was already stand- 

 ing assume such a position. No other kind of heavy game has this 

 habit; and indeed, so far as I know, only one other hoofed animal, the 

 white goat of the northern Rocky Mountains. In the case of the white 

 goat, however, the attitude is far more often assumed, and in more 

 extreme form ; it is one of the characteristic traits of the queer goat- 

 antelope, so many of whose ways and looks are peculiar to. itself alone. 



" Next morning Kermit and I with the bulk of the safari walked 



back to our main camp, on the Nile Each of us struck off 



across the country by himself, with his gun-bearers. After walking- 

 five or six miles I saw a big rhino three-quarters of a mile off. At 

 this point the country was flat, the acacias very thinly scattered, and 

 the grass completely burnt off, the green young blades sprouting ; and 

 there was no difficulty in making out, at the distance we did, the vast 

 gray bulk of the rhino as it stood inertly under a tree. Drawing 

 nearer we saw that it had a good horn, although not as good as 

 Kermit's beast ; and approaching quietly to within forty yards I shot 

 the beast." 



BIBLIOGRAPHY 



1743. Parsons, James : Natural history of the rhinoceros. 



Philosophical Transactions, Vol. 42, June 9, 1743, London, 1744, pp. 



523-541, pis. 1-3. 

 Horn figured, pi. 3, fig. 6. 

 180 1. Barrow, John : An account of travels in the interior of southern 

 Africa, in the years 1797 and 1798, London, 1801, Vol. 1, p. 395- 



Supposed occurrence of white rhinoceros in Namaqualand. 



1817. Burchell, W. J. : Note sur une nouvelle espece de rhinoceros. 

 Bull, des Sciences, Soc. Philomatique, 181 7, Paris, pp. 96-97. 



Description of Rhinoceros simus. 



