It is reassuring to know that this animal since 1922 has been an the (practically) prohibited list in the Sudan. The official slaughter of twenty-five in three years is more than enough. Except where special permits for museum purposes are granted, their killing should not be allowed at all. No large animal in my opinion is less harmful, less dangerous, and more easily shot than is this comparatively defenceless walking gargoyle of the bush.
Carpenter's statement that the White Rhinoceros ' was probably never so numerous as he is to-day ' since about r9ro, can, of course, only be correct for the small Western Mongalla (Lado) district.
Everywhere he is decreasing in numbers, the natives south-west of the Nile-Congo Divide spearing a great many annually for the price of their horns. Throughout the Welle region of the Congo, after the annual grass fires have opened up the country, the bleached bones of these animals are common and conspicuous objects amongst the burnt and blackened surroundings. Only on the British side of the watershed has the species, until within the last year, I think, been afforded anything like protection, and as regards the Congo this has largely been brought about by both American and British Press representation, which Capt. Carpenter seems to disparage.
Carpenter's statement that the White Rhinoceros ' was probably never so numerous as he is to-day ' since about r9ro, can, of course, only be correct for the small Western Mongalla (Lado) district.
