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Show 332 MR. R. T. CORYNDON ON THE [Apr* ^ ) I will now describe a curious habit of R. simus; it is in the manner of dropping its dung. R. bicornis, after doing this, proceeds to stamp upon the dung and to tear and dig up the ground in the immediate vicinity, so that there is absolutely no chance of any one missing the place where a R. bicornis has spent the day. R. simus, however, leaves his dung alone and does not trample and scatter it about; moreover, he is conservative in these matters; he always drops his dung in one place until he has raised a huge heap, then he starts the same operation in another place, and so on. For this reason it is impossible to confound the species when following spoor, in addition to which the footprints of R. simus are much larger than those of R. bicornis, and one observes also the marks that each leaves upon the twigs or the grass they feed upon. I think the longest horn of R. simus known measures 5 6 | inches, and I believe specimens of the horns of R. bicornis are in existence which measure 40 inches. It goes, of course, without saying that all the long-horned examples of R. simus have been shot out of the country years ago. Should, in the future, another specimen be shot and preserved, I fancy the hunter will not cavil at the length-or rather the shortness-of the horn it may carry. Until 1892, the last White Rhinoceros shot was, I believe, in 1886. John Engelbrecht and another Dutchman then killed ten of them, and five more were shot in the same season by native hunters from Matabililand. It is a curious fact that under the skin of the two animals which I shot I found six native bullets, which the Rhinoceroses must have carried about with them for years; two of these bullets were of hammered iron and four were of lead. This remarkable fact is decidedly in favour of m y argument that it is impossible to preserve the very few remaining specimens, as the natives of course do not look at the matter from the same point of view as savants at home; they want meat, and when they shoot or trap an animal, which is luckily seldom, they do not preserve the skin. If the Rhinoceroses are not shot by white men they will most assuredly be shot by natives. In the former case the skeletons and hides will be set up for the public benefit in our museums ; in 1he latter-well, a few jackals and vultures, and some small kraal hidden away in the bush in the almost unexplored flats in Africa, will alone benefit-and at a cost which I fancy Europeans do not as yet sufficiently appreciate. As time goes on zoologists will the more regret that the largest of land mammals after the Elephant has become extinct-and this, too, although almost unrepresented in all the splendid museums in Europe and America. I will now give a short account of the specimens of the White Rhinoceros that I have lately shot. About the middle of 1892 I was on the Zambesi, and after spending some time with the Portuguese, I proceeded to return to Salisbury in Mashonaland. On the way we found three White Rhinoceroses and shot the calf; the two old ones, though badly wounded, managed to escape. Next morning my companion, |