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Show 1881.] MR. SELOUS ON THE SOUTH-AFRICAN RHINOCEROSES. 72O 6. On the South-African Rhinoceroses. By F. C. SELOUS. (Communicated by Dr. A. GUNTHER, F.R.S. &c) [Received May 21, 1881.] (Plate LXII.) In those portions of Southern and South Central Africa in which I have hunted I have only met with two true species of Rhinoceroses- namely the large, square-mouthed, grass-eating species (Bhinoceros simus), and the smaller prehensile-lipped Rhinoceros, which feeds exclusively upon bush (B. bicornis). In making this statement I am well aware that I express an opinion at variance with that held by many naturalists upon the subject; however, as the conclusions at which I have arrived are the results of eight years devoted entirely to hunting in the most out-of-the-way portions of the interior of South Africa, during the first three of which (that is, in 1872, 1873, and 1874) Rhinoceroses were still very plentiful, and as even since that time I have had many opportunities of personally observing the habits and peculiarities of each and every variety of these animals, and as, moreover, I shall support m y views by specimens of horns, I think that I a m warranted in expressing an opinion upon the subject. At any rate it is now quite time that the question of how many species of Rhinoceroses do really exist in South Africa should be finally set at rest; and it is only by comparing the statements of men who are really competent to give an opinion upon the subject that this is ever likely to be done. For m y part I a m fully persuaded that there are only two species in South Africa, or, indeed, in all Africa ; for the North-African Rhinoceros in the gardens of this Society I have no hesitation in pronouncing to be specifically identical with the South-African Prehensile-lipped Rhinoceros. I will first speak of the Square-mouthed Rhinoceros (B. simus). Twenty years ago this animal seems to have been very plentiful in the western half of Southern Africa; now, unless it is still to be found between the Okavango and Cunene rivers, it must be almost extinct in that portion of the country. And this is not to be wondered at when one reads the accounts in Andersson's and Chapman's books of their shooting as many as eight of these animals in one night as they were drinking at a small water-hole ; for it must be remembered that these isolated water-holes, at the end of the dry season, represented all the water to be found over an enormous extent of country, and that therefore all the Rhinoceroses that in happier times were distributed over many hundreds of square miles were in times of drought dependent upon perhaps a single pool for their supply of water. In 1877, during several months' hunting in the country to the south of Linyanti, on the river Chobe, I only saw the spoor of two Square-mouthed Rhinoceroses, though in 1874 I had found them fairly plentiful in the same district; whilst in 1879, during |