XXI 
HORNS 
275 
horn. The square mouthed species does not indulge in 
such antics, but when a small calf accompanies its 
mother, it always runs in front and she appears to guide 
it by holding the point of her horn upon the little 
animal’s rump. Selous further states that in all sudden 
changes of pace from a trot to a gallop, or vice versa, 
the same position is always exactly maintained. 
The African elephant has a number of horns but they 
grow around the tip of the tail : though commonly 
called hairs, they are hard like strips of whalebone. 
Shattock examined the microscopic structure of these 
so-called hairs in 1896, and found them to be agglutina¬ 
tions of hair-like structures such as compose the horns 
of the rhinoceros. 
The long front horn of the rhinoceros is sometimes 
fashioned into sticks to beat cattle and goats, and 
occasionally it is made into clubs for Masai orators and 
councillors. In the south-west of Kordofan the natives 
have a tradition that anyone who drinks out of a cup 
made from a rhinoceros horn never gets sick. In some 
parts of the East such cups are supposed to neutralise 
poisons poured into them. 
The Head of a Chameleon with 
three horns. (Natural History 
Museum.) 
