RHINOCEROS CALVES. 
281 
Gumming relates a similar instance on the part of 
a rhinoceros calf. After telling us he was recon¬ 
noitring the forest in search of wounded game, he 
goes on to say 
“ When I had proceeded a little further the dogs 
ran forward, and next moment a rush of many feet 
was heard charging towards where I stood; it was 
a troop of half-grown lions, with a lioness, which 
dashed past me, followed by the dogs. They had 
been feasting on a white rhinoceros I had wounded 
two nights previously, now lying a little ahead. 
Beside the carcass stood a fine fat calf. The poor 
thing, no doubt fancying that its mother slept, had, 
heedless of lions and the other wild animals that 
had feasted there, remained beside its dead dam for 
a day and two nights. Rhinoceros calves,” he 
goes on to say, 66 always stick to their mothers long 
after they are dead.” 
The African elephant is, I believe, equally docile 
as the Indian when domesticated, but we have no 
account of a negro tribe that have ever tamed one 
of these sagacious animals—their only maxim, as 
some one truly says, is “ kill and eat.” 
Young elephants have, however, often been kept 
in confinement in Africa, by the colonists and others, 
but, for some reason or other, they do not seem to 
thrive. They linger awhile, and then die. An 
acquaintance of mine had one for a considerable pe¬ 
riod, which was extremely amusing and interesting. 
A favourite trick of his consisted in pushing his 
head between a person’s legs, which usually ended 
in a tremendous somersault on the part of the 
