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| Location: |
World |
| Subject: |
Distribution - Hunting |
| Species: |
Black Rhino |
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A point to be remembered with all game which has to be spoored up, is, that a very early start is essential, so the hunter should be away as the sun tips the horizon. This is even of importance when one goes out chance hunting, for early in the morning Antelopes, and game such as Buffaloes will be found in the open dambos (valleys). The sun begins to get stronger as time goes on, and about 3 pm. is the hottest time. Then all game will be in cover for the shade, except purely game of the plains, which will often go to clumps of trees, ant-hills or high grass to get shelter from the sun. In the dry season, often called the cold season in South Central Africa, the temperature can be quite nippy at dawn, and for an hour or so afterwards, so an old tweed jacket is quite useful. I always had the heel of my rifles finished in wood and no iron heelplate, which makes one's hands bitterly cold at such an hour and becomes burning hot in the sun.
The main point in hunting Rhino is to keep the wind right, for he is a keen-scented animal. His eyesight and hearing are bad, and he is an excitable beast, which accounts for his strange behaviour in East Africa where he sometimes charges through a line of porters. He does this to get above the wind for he dislikes the smell of human beings, and his behaviour on such occasions is not due to ferocity, but to fear, and his dislike of the taint of mankind. Of all the larger game he keeps furthest away from the habitations of man. In East Africa instead of being a plains-loving animal as formerly, constant persecution is, I believe, making him more of a bush-dweller. In this way he may succeed in his struggle for survival. A good average horn will be about 20 inches on the front curve in South Central Africa, and one of 28 inches would, nowadays, be quite good in Kenya.
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Rhinoceros
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