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BRITISH CENTRAL AFRICA 
although I have seen elephants at work in Hyphaene palm forests on the Congo 
actually being able to watch them from a boat working their will on these trees 
for the sake of the “ ginger-bread ” covering of the nuts, I cannot say I have 
seen them kneel down and uproot a tree with the tusk. One is a little puzzled 
sometimes to account for the enormous development of the two remaining 
upper incisor teeth, unless they were used for some such purpose as digging 
up roots. They are not so useful as defensive or offensive weapons that they 
should be worth development for this purpose alone. In killing animals much 
less in size than himself the elephant generally uses his trunk and feet, though 
I admit many cases occur—including one which took place a few months ago in 
England—where an elephant does deliberately slay his victim with his tusk. 
On the whole I am inclined to believe that where the elephant retains these 
huge teeth he uses them occasionally for digging in the ground. This belief is 
supported by the very distinct statements of such authorities as (the late) Sir 
Samuel Baker and Mr. F. C. Selous. The former writes “ They (the acacia 
trees) are easily overturned by the tusks of the elephants which are driven like 
crowbars beneath the roots and used as levers, in which rough labour they are 
frequently broken .... It is nearly always the right tusk which is selected 
for this duty.” Mr. Selous states that he has seen large areas of sandy soil 
ploughed up by the tusks of these animals in their search for roots. 
Although nowhere very abundant, the ordinary two-horned rhinoceros is 
probably found pretty generally over all British Central Africa except on the 
high plateaux. But from all accounts it is absent from the south shore of 
Tanganyika and from the Nyasa-Tanganyika plateau. Unless, therefore, it can 
be proved to exist in the interior of the Mozambique district the rhinoceros will 
be another of those animals whose range is completely broken by the inter¬ 
position of British Central Africa. 1 Is the so-called “white rhinoceros” 
(.Rhinoceros simus) found north of the Zambezi ? This is a question rather 
hard to answer in the negative or affirmative. I should not be surprised to hear 
that it was, though not within British territory but in the adjoining districts of 
Portuguese Zambezia. In 1892 an English trader, Mr. Harry Pettitt, gave me 
an extraordinary pair of horns which he had obtained in Portuguese territory to 
the south of the river Ruo. These horns were very similar in appearance to 
those of the “ white rhinoceros,” that is to say, both horns were of good length 
but the front one was extremely long, slender and directed forwards. There 
are specimens extant of the white rhinoceros in which the front horn is not 
directed forwards but is exactly vertical, or turned slightly backwards. Still I 
never remember to have seen a specimen of the ordinary two-horned rhinoceros 
which has the front horn directed forwards. The pair of horns to which I 
allude I sent to Mr. Sclater and I believe they are now in the British Museum. 2 3 
The zebra of British Central Africa is a singularly beautiful beast and 
should, if right were done, be made a type species under the name of Equus 
tigrinus 3 with three sub-species or varieties—A. tigrinus burchelli , E. tigrinus 
chapmani, and E. tigrinus granti, to indicate in addition to the clear and 
perfectly striped Central African form the three other varieties which are 
marred in their beauty by intermediate faint stripes, and one of which 
1 Abundant evidence, however, of the existence of the Rhinoceros in the vicipity of Lake Rukwa 
was obtained by the Rev. Harwood Nutt of the London Missionary Society. 
2 Mr. Sclater suggests they may belong to a sub-species of Rhinoceros proposed by Dr. Gray, “ Gray’s 
Rhinoceros.” 
3 Namely the striped horse, par excellence. 
