Expedition in the region of the rivers Siak and Kampar. Also put traps near the little river Tenajan.
The native poachers used a sling of steelwire which automatically laced the snout of the rhino just above its horns. But the wire cut deeply into the skin, making the animal completely furious. It charged anything within range, until it finally dropped from sheer exhaustion, half-choked and partly mutilated. To the poachers this mutilation was of no importance, they merely wanted to get the horn.
They seem to feed and travel allnight and in the very early hours of the morning. We never saw any rhinos during the day. [female caught] To our amazement we discovered that she ate all day and night, merely interrupted by an occasional bath and a little nap.
It is an ill-tempered animal
To dig pits across all the trails leading to the swamp was another solution, but the difficulty in getting the heavy animal out, made us abandon that plan. We finally decied to build a solid, well camouflaged palisade-fence around the whole bathing place. Where the fence was to cross the trails, we would make trap-doors which automatically fell when the animal passed through the opening. This kind of trap had previously been used by Ryhiner in trapping tapir and a female rhino. We decided to buuild an enclosure of about 30x30 m with 6 trap doors.
It is a swamp and hill animal, lives in inaceessible tropical jungles.
In part of us a trail, partly covered by withered leaves, made by rhinos and belonged to a system of similar trails.
As far as we could ascertain from the network of rhino trails, they are great travellers. At certain times we found plenty of fresh rhino trails in our hunting district, at other times the animals seemed to have vanished completely. The local hunters believed that rhinos move periodically, although they have no specific data about the season. According to our observations, rain seemed to influence the movements. When violent torrents flooded the lowlands, the rhino stayed away from the swamps and remained in the hills where they had enough water for their daily bath. But the drier the forest, the more they moved towards the swamp.
It is an unsociable animal. Two adults are never seen together except for the rare moments of mating or when a cow is accompanied by a calf. Most of the time it is a lone wanderer.
We found that several rhino-trails led down to the swamp which evidently was their favourite bathing place. With hot and dry weather, the horse flies also seemed more bothersome to the rhino and the necessity of coming to the wallows to get a protecting cover of mud increased.
It is quick as lighting. I have seen it move in and out between trees, roots and other obstacles in the tangled undergrowth with surprising grace and agility. And I have seen it stop, turn around in the fraction of a second, and charge ahead with the speed of an express train.
Sumatra. The Chinese harbour an old superstition that a certain powder, made of the skin and horn of the rhino, has powerful aphrodisiac properties.
