THE BLACK RHINO OF THE LADO 
SOME INTERESTING NOTES CONCERNING ITS LIFE HISTORY AND HOW IT 
DIFFERS FROM ITS COUNTERPART OF THE AFRICAN WILDS, THE WHITE SPECIES 
Ey Majcr C, H. STJGAND 
T he black rhino, unlike the white, 
is widely distributed over Africa. 
It used to be common in South 
Africa but is now scarce south of the 
Zambezi river. North of that river it 
is plentiful in such parts of norther’’. 
Rhodesia, Nyasaland and Portuguese ter- 
ritory as are thinly populated, but it does 
not like the neighborhood of man. Owing 
to the thickness of the bush country it 
inhabits, and consequently the difficulty 
in locating it, the rhino appears to be 
less common than it actually is. 
British East Africa and part of what 
was until recently German East Africa 
are par excellence the country for rhino. 
These countries have been lately so much 
settled over thUt the game has been 
thinned off in most of the healthy uplands 
but rhino still occur in numbers in the 
thicker and more unfertile and unhealthy 
parts. They are found in the Sudan and 
Ugauay on the east side of the Nile, from 
the Sudd region southwai’ds, but do not 
appear on the west bank where the white 
rhino take their place. 
In Somaliland it is only when one 
reaches as far south as the Webbe Shebeli 
that this pachyderm is met with. It does 
not occur in the highlands of Abyssinia 
but is found in the thorny bush country 
which lies below the upland plateaux. 
Its chief food is the leaves of thorn 
trees of the acacia type, although it does 
graze on other plants. Therefore it is 
generally met with in the hot and rather 
sterile areas w'hich favor the growth of 
such trees, although it usually keeps to 
the thick bush it is also seen in the 
open plain and desert. Especially is this 
so in East Africa where rhino can be 
recognized miles aw’ay, as dark patches 
moving across the vast, open prairies 
called the Athi and Kapiti plains and in 
the northern desert regions cn the 
Abyssinian border. 
A casual observer, seeing them in such 
spots and furthermore noticing them 
grazing and, if near enough, seeing their 
jaws actually moving, would be willing to 
stake his all that they were feeding on 
grass, like the other game of the plains 
around them, but he would lose his 
money. If one looks closely at the place 
in which a rhino has been grazing one 
finds a number of tiny thorn shoots and 
it is these it has really been eating. 
On being disturbed the rhino will gen- 
erally gallop off but does not always go 
in the opposite direction to the threatened 
danger. In rhino-infested country one is 
[^nstantly being scared by animals 
T\/fAJOR 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 app^'eciation 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.”] 
dashing past too close to be pleasant. I 
remember an occasion on ■which one came 
up from behind my caravan and careered 
up our path from rear to front. Every 
porter had to throw down his load and 
skip out of the way until finally I myself, 
marching in a dignified way at the head 
cf the procession, looked round at the 
scene cf commotion just in time to make 
a bolt for it. It appears to me that the 
rhino, befoi-e lying down, maps out its 
line of retreat and charges off in this 
predetermined direction quite regardless 
of whether it is towards or away fi'om 
the threatened danger. It is this habit 
which makes him so often come to close 
quarters with the hunter, cr blunder 
through a caravan of porters. Of course 
they will also charge with every intent 
to do injury, generally following up the 
wdnd or, occasionally, charging for the 
sound of a rifle. When the animal really 
means business it will, instead of 
thundering past, turn quickly when it 
finds that it has missed its objective, cr 
when it gets a new indication cf dii'ccticn 
from sound, or scent. Being very short- 
sighted it has to come very close before 
it can charge on sight. It is astonishing 
how quickly this ponderous beast can 
w’heel round on such occasions and also, 
when disturbed ■whilst lying down, how it 
can spring up and break straight into a 
gallop — apparently requiring no time to 
get up steam. The pace at w’hich 
elenhant and rhino move appears much 
greater than it really is; a good runner 
could probably outdistance them, or be 
able to dodge them, on a racing track but 
one docs net n.e^t on such favorable 
ground. One meets them in thick grass 
and bush, through which one can only 
force a way with difficulty, whilst under 
foot are roots, stones and ant-bear holes. 
When one tries to run races ■with them 
under such conditions one always loses, 
unless one has sufficient start to get out 
of the wind before one is sighted. 
M any years ago, in Nyasaland, 
whilst following an elephant path 
through thick country, I cut the 
fresh spoor of two rhino who had crossed 
the track and were ljung down, unknown 
to me, thirty yards, or so, away. On 
getting my wind they both came for me. 
Owing to the thickness of the grass I 
could not see them until they were but 
a few yards distant. I then fired in the 
face of one of them and jumped aside to 
try to dodge the second. This one whipped 
round, as quick as lightning, kicked me 
over and then tossed me high in the air, 
ripping a large gash in my chest with 
its horn. I reached the ground just in 
time to get a glimpse of its hind quarters 
as it was rushing away. Probably the 
one I fired at had retired on receiving a 
bullet in its head and the other, finding 
its companion gone, had hastened to fol- 
low it, instead of waiting to finish me off. 
Some people think it particularly low 
down for the rhino, and other dangerous 
game, to molest the innocent hunter in 
this way without provocation. They con- 
demn them as ‘savage’ and ‘ferocious’ 
beasts not worth a moment’s considera- 
tion and cnly fit to be exterminated. 
Such an attitude is unjust — w'orse still 
it is lacking in a sense of humor. Firstly 
one never know’s if the animal was really 
unprovoked. It may have been shot at 
by some other sporteman and be unable 
to discriminate bctw'een the scent of the 
hunter who has already wounded it and 
the hunter who has not yet done so. Again 
it may consider the hunter’s presence in 
its particular haunt is, of itself, a 
c'eclarati''n of war. The hunter spends 
his life in stalking game, trying to come 
on them unawares and then attempts to 
murder them wth a weapon calculated to 
kill them before they have a chance to 
retaliate. When the quarry steals a 
march on the hunter and catches him 
first it is ridiculous to consider that there 
is ruAdil’ing rnfair. or unsporting, in its 
beba^'-icr. The Mohammedan dees not 
consider it law’ful to eat the flesh of an 
animal which has not been killed by a co- 
religionist in the authorized way — by 
