catch pressed forward under my thumb, I 
trod gingerly through the grass, peering into 
the thicket and expectant of developments. 
In a minute there was a furious snorting 
and crashing directly opposite us in the 
thicket, and I brought up my rifle; but the 
rhino did not quite place us, and broke out 
of the cover in front, some thirty yards 
away; and I put both barrels into and be¬ 
hind the shoulder. The terrific striking 
force of the heavy gun told at once, and 
the rhino wheeled, and struggled back into 
the thicket, and we heard it fall. With the 
utmost caution, bending and creeping un¬ 
der the branches, we made our way in, and 
saw the beast lying with its head toward us. 
We thought it was dead, but would take 
no chances; and I put in another, but as 
it proved needless, heavy bullet. 
It was an old female, considerably small¬ 
er than the bull I had already shot, with the 
front horn measuring fourteen inches as 
against his nineteen inches; as always with 
rhinos, it was covered with ticks, which clus¬ 
tered thickly in the folds and creases of the 
skin, around and in the ears, and in all the 
tender places. McMillan sent out an ox 
wagon and brought it in to the house, where 
we weighed it. It was a little over two 
thousand two hundred pounds. It had evi¬ 
dently been in the neighborhood in which 
we found it for a considerable time, for 
a few hundred yards away we found its 
stamping ground, a circular spot where the 
earth had been all trampled up and kicked 
about, according to the custom of rhinoc¬ 
eroses; they return day after day to such 
places to deposit their dung, which is then 
kicked about with the hind feet. As with 
all our other specimens, the skin was taken 
off and sent back to the National Museum. 
The stomach was filled with leaves and 
twigs, this kind of rhinoceros browsing on 
the tips of the branches by means of its 
hooked, prehensile upper lip. 
Now I did not want to kill this rhinoceros, 
and I am not certain that it really intended 
to charge us. It may very well be that if we 
had stood firm it would, after much threat¬ 
ening and snorting, have turned and made 
off; veteran hunters like Selous could, I 
doubt not, have afforded to wait and see 
what happened. But I let it get within 
forty yards, and it still showed every symp- 
