278 
A COLONY IN THE MAKING 
CHAP. 
worse! Luckily, they are not slow to take the 
hint that their room is preferable to their company, 
and are very easily banished. Thus practically 
all the open plain in the Highlands used to 
be infested with rhino, and notably all the open 
country round Nairobi. Nowadays it is quite the 
exception to come across rhino in the open, though 
the surrounding bushland may be full of them. Rhino 
are usually found singly, in which case it is probably a 
bull; or in pairs, in which case they are generally a cow 
and calf; or in threes, a bull, a cow, and a calf. Larger 
parties are sometimes seen, but I cannot personally 
recall more than five standing together. Their 
favourite food is young mimosa thorn coming up in 
the grass, or boughs taken from trees of the same 
variety. They do not care for grass, of which they 
eat but little. Those who aver that they have seen 
rhinoceros browsing vigorously off grass on the plain 
would very often find on examination that it is the 
young thorns amongst the grass that have suffered. 
The mother suckles its young for three years, and one 
can accordingly understand how long-lived and there¬ 
fore easily exterminated the race is. To the great 
satisfaction of all concerned, each year sees less 
rhinoceros on the more traversed routes. There need 
be no fear whatever for his absolute extermination, as 
there are large tracts of forest and almost impenetrable 
bush in which he can exist and where to hunt him will 
be a sport dangerous and genuine enough for anyone. 
Large horns are very rare nowadays, or at all events 
hard to obtain. The longest are nearly always 
possessed by cows, those of the males being the more 
massive. Outside thick cover it is to-day hard to 
obtain a horn of more than 22 or 23 inches. 
