538 
FOREST AND STREAM 
October, 1919 
THE WHITE RHINO OF THE LADO 
SOME INTERESTING NOTES CONCERNING ITS LIFE HISTORY AND HOW IT 
DIFFERS^FROM ITS COUNTERPART OF THE AFRICAN WILDS. THE BLACK SPECIES 
By Major C. H. STIGAND 
I N the old days numbers of so-called 
“white” rhinoceros used to roam the 
plains of South Africa. The chief 
difference between this and the “black” 
species is that the white rhino is a grass 
eater, and has a square lip, whilst the 
black rhino has a pointed and prehensile 
lip, which enables it to strip the thorn 
trees of their leaves. In size the two 
animals are much the same, the white 
rhino is perhaps a little larger and stout- 
er than its counterpart. The terms 
“white” and “black” seem to have been 
given to the two species from the fact 
that the square-lipped kind, being a grass 
eater, was generally seen in the bright 
light of an open plain, whilst the pointed- 
lipped species was more often seen in 
the shadow of thorn trees. In reality 
the two are of much the same color — 
a blackish grey, when clean, and the 
color of the soil, when dirty. They are 
both fond of taking mud baths and in 
the laterite soil, so common in Africa, 
they often appear bright red in color. 
The base of the anterior horn of the 
white rhino is squarish in front, like the 
lip, and a single horn of this species can 
be easily distinguished by this charac- 
teristic. A section of the base of the 
horns of the two species would be some- 
thing like the diagrams below. 
In recent years, after the white rhino 
had become practically extinct in South 
Africa, it was found to exist in consid- 
erable numbers in the district known 
as the Lado Enclave. It is now known 
to occur on the west bank of the Nile 
from Shambe, just south of the sudd re- 
gion, to Lake Albert, and also ranges 
westward some distance into the eastern 
Congo. It is strictly confined to the 
west side of the Nile, no specimen hav- 
ing been recorded from the east bank. 
N ot long before the war Lord Kitch- 
ener asked me to try to catch a 
young white rhino for the Cairo 
Zoo. As soon as I could find time to 
leave my duties in the north of the En- 
clave I went with my wife to a spot 
known as rhino camp, on the upper navi- 
gable stretch of Nile, not far from Wade- 
lai. The country is uninhabited; there 
is much game and rhino are especially 
abundant there. I took with me a party 
of Madi, whom I enlisted at Dufile, with 
their game nets — nets made of thick 
locally-made rope. On arrival at the 
camp we went through a few rehearsals 
of putting up the nets quickly and with- 
out noise. A fallen tree or a bush was 
M ajor STIGAND is one of the 
most noted of recent African 
big game hunters and explorers, 
and he is also a field naturalist of 
unusual powers. His studies of the 
tracks of animals have been almost 
unique. The only studies approach- 
ing them are those about the tracks 
of game of continental Europe, in 
the hunting books of the seven- 
teenth century. He has the keen- 
est appreciation of the vivid and 
extraordinary beauty of the teem- 
ing African wild life and has made 
close first-hand observations of the 
life histories of very many species 
of big game . — [Theodore Roosevelt 
in foreword to Major Stigand’s 
book, “Hunting the Elephant in 
Africa.”] 
made to stand for the rhino and the na- 
tives put up the nets in a semi-circle 
downwind of the object representing the 
quarry. Cases of tinned milk had been 
taken with us to feed the young animal 
in the event of capture The next thing 
was to find a suitable rhino calf. After 
much hunting about and changing of 
camp a female rhino and her calf were 
located. I shot the mother and, as ex- 
pected, the calf remained standing over 
her body. 
A runner was sent for the nets and 
presently a crowd of Madi arrived. In 
spite of the rehearsals there was a cer- 
tain amount of noise and confusion and 
not enough was made of the available 
material, the nets being spread on too 
short a frontage. As the rhino showed 
signs of being alarmed there was no 
a. cl^. 
time to readjust the nets, so a line of 
natives was drawn up on each side with 
the object of shouting to stop the animal 
breaking away to a fiank. We then gave 
him our scent. He threw up his head 
and charged, not for the nets, but for 
the natives standing to one side. The 
snorting young animal, about as big as 
a cow, was such a good imitation of a 
full grown rhino which, in its turn, is 
such a good imitation of a locomotive 
roaring through its funnel, that the na- 
tives broke away and it went straight off. 
We searched for this young rhino for 
some days and sighted it three times, but 
it would never stop long enough for us 
to bring up the nets. Once I crawled up 
within ten yards of him with a rope but 
was unable to hitch it onto him. The 
day before we had to leave, another rhino 
and calf were sighted. The calf was 
rathei* bigger than we wanted but it was 
the only one available I shot the mother 
and this time the nets were run up 
quickly in a wide semi-circle and when 
we gave the young rhino our wind he 
charged straight for one of the middle 
nets. He struck it and when I saw it 
stretch and envelop his whole body, re- 
minding one of a rabbit in a purse net, I 
congratulated myself on having him safe. 
The next moment, however, we saw him 
careering away the other side of the net, 
he had gone straight through without 
even stumbling, or breaking his stride, 
leaving us nothing as a souvenir except 
a great hole bordered by broken strands 
of rope. It was evident that one should 
have either stronger nets or a double 
line, or get the animal earlier in the 
season when younger. I never had a 
chance of going down there again. 
The natives of Nyasaland say that the 
female calf runs with the mother and the 
male with the father, but this is not so. 
The calf always runs with the mother 
and stays with her until it is almost as 
big as herself. If one meets with two 
rhino of about equal size it is almost cer- 
tain to be a female and a grown calf 
and not a male and female. The male 
is not often seen with the female; he 
seems to graze in the same area but rests 
under different trees. He is generally 
not far away and probably always knows 
the female’s whereabouts, partly by 
scent, partly by instinct and partly by a 
knowledge of their joint habits. 
M any writers have remarked on a 
habit the rhino is supposed to pos- 
sess of tossing his dung with his 
horn. I cannot help thinking that who- 
ever started this story made it in all 
good faith from jumping to a mistaken 
