172 
HUNTING IN THE SOTIK [ch. yiii 
advanced toward him in distinctly bellicose style ; then 
she recognized him, her calf trotted up, and the three 
animals stood together, tossing their heads, and evi¬ 
dently trying to make out what was near them. But 
we were down wind, and they do not see well, with their 
little twinkling pig’s eyes. We were anxious not to be 
charged by the cow and calf, as her horn was very poor, 
and it would have been unpleasant to be obliged to 
shoot her, and so we drew off. 
Next day, when Kermit and I were out alone with 
our gun-bearers, we saw another rhino, a bull, with a 
stubby horn. This rhino, like the others of the neigh¬ 
bourhood, was enjoying his noonday rest in the open, 
miles from cover. “ Look at him,” said Kermit, 
“ standing there in the middle of the African plain, 
deep in prehistoric thought.” Indeed the rhinoceros 
does seem like a survival from the elder world that has 
vanished ; he was in place in the Pliocene Age ; he would 
not have been out of place in the Miocene ; but nowadays 
he can only exist at all in regions that have lagged 
behind, while the rest of the world, for good or for evil, 
has gone forward. Like other beasts, rhinos differ in 
habits in different places. This prehensile-lipped species 
is everywhere a browser, feeding on the twigs and leaves 
of the bushes and low trees ; but in their stomachs I 
have found long grass stems mixed with the twig tips 
and leaves of stunted bush. In some regions they live 
entirely in rather thick bush; whereas on the plains 
over which we were hunting the animals haunted the 
open by preference, feeding through thin bush, where 
they were visible miles away, and usually taking their 
rest, either standing or lying, out on the absolutely bare 
plains. They drank at the small shallow rain pools, 
seemingly once every twenty-four hours; and I saw 
