Locality: Sudan, Lado Enclave. Collected by: Powell-Cotton. Many years ago I secured a good White Rhino bull at Lemasi, in the Lado Enclave, a country of thorn scrub interspersed with wide stretches of open grass, upon which the beasts cropped during the dark. This specimen has been set up whole by Messrs. Rowland Ward, and can now be seen at the Powell-Cotton Museum, Birchington. In coll. Powell Cotton Museum, Birchington, United Kingdom
In South Africa, less than one hundred years ago, a traveller in Magaliesberg (North-west Transvaal), counted over eighty white Rhino in one day's march. Now, unfortunately, the sole survivors are said to be some half dozen specimens, which the Natal Government are endeavouring to protect.
Locality: Sudan, Lado Enclave. Collected by: Powell-Cotton. Many years ago I secured a good White Rhino bull at Lemasi, in the Lado Enclave, a country of thorn scrub interspersed with wide stretches of open grass, upon which the beasts cropped during the dark. This specimen has been set up whole by Messrs. Rowland Ward, and can now be seen at the Powell-Cotton Museum, Birchington. In coll. Powell Cotton Museum, Birchington, United Kingdom
Locality: Sudan, Lado Enclave. Collected by: Powell-Cotton. Many years ago I secured a good White Rhino bull at Lemasi, in the Lado Enclave, a country of thorn scrub interspersed with wide stretches of open grass, upon which the beasts cropped during the dark. This specimen has been set up whole by Messrs. Rowland Ward, and can now be seen at the Powell-Cotton Museum, Birchington. In coll. Powell Cotton Museum, Birchington, United Kingdom
The White Rhino is a grass feeder with a wide square mouth as its most distinctive feature, while the narrow-jawed Black type subsists on thorn twigs gathered with its pointed prehensile upper lip.
The term 'White' first applied to Rhino by the Boers of South Africa, is misleading, for while the texture of the skin of Rhinoceros simus differs from that of the Black species, the colour of the hide is only a slightly lighter shade of slatey grey. The animal, however, is fond of bathing in mud or rolling in dust, from which it takes on any shade from a deep red to a light grey, that would appear whitish in a strong light.
As with Elephants, the older males often seek solitude or the company of one other male, for the greater part of the year, although at times a family party may be encountered with the calf leading the way, guided by the tip of its mother's horn, and the bull bringing up the rear.
Diceros bicornis. In the Baringo district Rhino were both numerous and aggressive
For many years European Museums have possessed isolated examples of a square-based Rhinoceros horn said to have come from the north of the Zambezi, but the first definite proof of the beast's existence was a single skull from Lado, which found its way to America in 1900. Nothing further was heard of the race until my own expedition of 1904-7, when I had the good fortune to bring home a series of skins and skeletons, from which the Northern White Rhino (Rhinoceros simus cottoni), was described as a type apart from the Southern, chiefly on the strength of distinctive differences in skull measurements. At the time of my expedition in the Enclave, the Rhino were very local, and preferred to frequent the outskirts of marshy swamps, five of which existed between Kero and Wadelai on the White Nile. Many years ago I secured a good White Rhino bull at Lemasi, in the Lado Enclave, a country of thorn scrub interspersed with wide stretches of open grass, upon which the beasts cropped during the dark.
Many years ago I secured a good White Rhino bull at Lemasi, in the Lado Enclave, a country of thorn scrub interspersed with wide stretches of open grass, upon which the beasts cropped during the dark.
Here they were in the habit of feeding and drinking during the night, but before dawn broke they set out on a four or five hours' trek to thorn scrub, in which to lie up for the day. This habit was most regular in the vicinity of the Belgian posts, where parties of native hunters were often sent out to secure meat for the garrison.
The brain is so small and so well protected by the horns that a front shot is almost impossible. It is well to aim low behind the shoulder or in the middle of the neck, but when the beast is facing, and a shot cannot be placed inside the shoulder, an aim to break the upper part of the leg is advisable.
One April night the stillness was broken by the hungry grunting of a Lion close to camp, and in the early morning we set out in search of tracks. Suddenly we caught sight of a Rhino, stretched at ease, head from us, with a number of Rhinoceros birds moving about its back. To fire at a prostrate animal is unsatisfactory, but the question was how to bring the beast to its feet without disturbing the birds, which we knew would flit up and down the Rhino head at first sign of us, and screech loudly. Fearing that this alarm from its faithful little followers might put the Rhino to instant flight, I calculated the position of its heart as well as possible, and fired as lie lay.
A peculiarity of both the White and Black varieties is the custom of resorting to the same spot day by day to deposit their dung, and these middens are a useful record to the hunter in search of fresh tracks.
The White Rhino is only exceeded in bulk by the Elephant, and a fully adult bull standing 5 feet to 5 feet 6 inches would weigh well over a ton.
The White Rhino is a grass feeder with a wide square mouth as its most distinctive feature, while the narrow-jawed Black type subsists on thorn twigs gathered with its pointed prehensile upper lip.
The term 'White' first applied to Rhino by the Boers of South Africa, is misleading, for while the texture of the skin of Rhinoceros simus differs from that of the Black species, the colour of the hide is only a slightly lighter shade of slatey grey. The animal, however, is fond of bathing in mud or rolling in dust, from which it takes on any shade from a deep red to a light grey, that would appear whitish in a strong light.
As with Elephants, the older males often seek solitude or the company of one other male, for the greater part of the year, although at times a family party may be encountered with the calf leading the way, guided by the tip of its mother's horn, and the bull bringing up the rear.
The White Rhino of my experience does not charge on scent like the Black, but it is nevertheless well to be wary, for now and then the beast will turn on the hunter with as much ferocity as its Black relation.
In the Baringo district Rhino were both numerous and aggressive, and the tale is told that before the days of the railway one of them charged a line of prisoners laden with the baggage of an official. The unfortunate men, who were chained by the neck, were unable to take flight, and several of them met their death.
As with Elephants, the older males often seek solitude or the company of one other male, for the greater part of the year, although at times a family party may be encountered with the calf leading the way, guided by the tip of its mother's horn, and the bull bringing up the rear. A Black Rhino family reverses the order of its going, for the bull takes the lead' with the cow behind him, while the calf has to follow mother as best it can.
In the Baringo district Rhino were both numerous and aggressive, and the tale is told that before the days of the railway one of them charged a line of prisoners laden with the baggage of an official. The unfortunate men, who were chained by the neck, were unable to take flight, and several of them met their death. When I was in that part of the country many years ago it was no unusual thing for the safari to cast down their loads and scatter in all directions as a beast, resentful of the scent of man, bore down on them unawares, snorting its disgust. This was provoking enough when one still had the right to shoot, but after securing the two Rhino permitted on his licence, a sportsman had no other course but ignominiously to take to his heels with the men who, quite unmoved by any explanation of government prohibition, smiled and marked him down as a fainthearted hunter.
For many years European Museums have possessed isolated examples of a square-based Rhinoceros horn said to have come from the north of the Zambezi, but the first definite proof of the beast's existence was a single skull from Lado, which found its way to America in 1900. Nothing further was heard of the race until my own expedition of 1904-7, when I had the good fortune to bring home a series of skins and skeletons, from which the Northern White Rhino (Rhinoceros simus cottoni), was described as a type apart from the Southern, chiefly on the strength of distinctive differences in skull measurements.
As with Elephants, the older males often seek solitude or the company of one other male, for the greater part of the year, although at times a family party may be encountered with the calf leading the way, guided by the tip of its mother's horn, and the bull bringing up the rear.
The White Rhino is only exceeded in bulk by the Elephant, and a fully adult bull standing 5 feet to 5 feet 6 inches would weigh well over a ton.
Specimen shot in Lado enclave, Sudan. The square-based horn was unusually massive, and measured 28 1/4 inches in length.
