Rhinoceros horn

“ The horns of the rhinoceros, which are capable of a high polish, are a valuable article of commerce. At the Cape this commodity fetches half as much as ordinary elephant ivory. It is extensively used in the manufacture of sword-handles, drinking-cups, ramrods for rifles, and a variety of other purposes. In Turkey the rhinoceros horn is much esteemed, more especially such as have a reddish tint about the grain. These, when made into cups, the Turks believe to have the virtue of detecting poison. ”

“ But little appears to be known of the habits of this species of rhinoceros. Although it is found in the swampy grass-covered plains of the Sunderbunds, its more usual habitat seems to be hilly forest-covered country, and both in Burma and Java it ascends to a height of several thousand feet above sea-level. It feeds principally upon leaves and the young shoots of trees and bushes. In disposition it is timid and inoffensive. Only the male carries a horn, which, being very short, is a very poor trophy for a sportsman. ”

“ The rhinoceros lives on grass and herbs, and makes his home entirely on the land. His flesh, like that of the hippopotamus, is very good to eat, but rhinoceros-beef ought to be dear, if the trouble and danger in getting it is taken into consideration when the price is fixed. He very often turns and charges on the hunters, and if he gets his horn under a man or a horse, he is likely to cause trouble.
It is said that a rhinoceros can kill an elephant, by ripping him up with his horn, and that the lion and all wild beasts are afraid of him. ”

“ Around the base of it the thick hide grows in leathery folds, and the outer layer of the "corn" often peels back in shreds, like the rough bark fibre on a cocoanut shell. If you watch a rhinoceros in a cage, you may see his nose-horn move when he wrinkles his thick, over-hanging lip and forehead. ”

“ The malformation which rendered this operation necessary is of interest, since it throws light on the way in which some forms have been described as distinct species, owing to abnormalities in the horns, due to injury, disease, or excessive growth. It will, be remembered that a few years ago the head of an African Rhinoceros showing a third horn was exhibited at a meeting of the Zoological Society; and last year Captain Harrison shot a Black Rhinoceros with five horns, of which the third and fourth were outgrowths from the second, while the fifth seems to have been distinct."—Standard. ”

“ This rhinoceros had a hairy coat like the Mammoth which lived much later, and in Siberia is found sometimes side by side with the later quadruped. Many of the extinct rhinoceroses had two horns like the African square-mouthed rhinoceros, which is sometimes misleadingly called the white rhinoceros. One great extinct beast, the Elasmotherium, allied to them, had a great horn carried on a huge boss in the middle of its head instead of on the nose, while another still huger animal called the Titanotherium and found in North America had a pair of horns perched on either -266- side of its nose. ”

“ There are several species of the rhinoceros, some of which are found in Asia, and others in different parts of Africa.
In the latter country there are four varieties—the black rhinoceros, having a single horn; the black species having two horns; the long-horned white rhinoceros; and the common white species, which has a short, stubby horn.
The largest of the African species is the long-horned, white, or square-nosed rhinoceros. When full-grown, it sometimes measures eighteen feet in length, and about the same around the body. Its horn frequently reaches a length of thirty inches. ”

“ Senhor Silva said he had heard of rhinoceroses with three horns, but he had never seen them, and rather doubted their existence. One species known as the cobaba has a front horn frequently upwards of four feet in length, pointing slightly forward from the snout, at an angle of 45 degrees. It can easily be conceived how fearful is a charge from an animal with such a weapon, active and determined as it is. Although the rhinoceros sees but badly, it has a peculiarly acute sense of hearing and smell. It winds an enemy at a great distance ”

“ In Southern Africa the white rhinoceros lived entirely on grass, and I have never seen any evidence of their having eaten anything else. When either walking, trotting, or galloping, the white rhinoceros always carried its nose close to the ground. A calf always preceded its mother, and she appeared to guide it by holding the point of her horn on the little creature's rump ”

“ The rhinoceros is very different. His eyes are wicked, he turns his head from side to side; he would like to stick that horn at the end of his nose into you if he could, and, holding you down with his great flat feet, rummage about inside you with it, and you would not live very long under that treatment. ”

“ As the rhinoceros does not seem to be of any use while alive, and as he is good for food when dead, and his horn furnishes excellent ivory, the hunters who kill him are engaged in a useful work, which is more than can be said for all sportsmen. ”

“ The horn of the rhinoceros presents no difficulty. It is physiologically equivalent to a mass of consolidated hairs, and, like ordinary hair, it consists of non-living or “formed” material, continually added to by the living tissues at its base. In section, that is to say in the form of its “generating curve,” the horn is ap­prox­i­mate­ly elliptical, with the long axis fore-and-aft, or, in some species, nearly circular. Its longitudinal growth proceeds with a maximum velocity anteriorly, and a minimum posteriorly ”

“ The rhinoceros is almost blind, but what he lacks in sight is made up for by his keen scent. As soon as he scents anything he wishes to impale on his horn, he starts in the direction from which he got his lead. When closely pursued by a "rhino," the hunter will stand still until the big beast is immediately in front; then he will side-step. A man can turn much quicker than a "rhino," and in that way one has a chance to get away, or to keep dodging the animal until help comes. ”

“ He doesn't try to avoid trouble as the more timid hippopotamus does.
The rhinoceros is a grazing animal, too, but does not find his food in the water. He feeds by night on wooded hillsides, in the brush or on swamps, and uses his nose-horn to pry up roots and his horse teeth to bite off grass. During the heat of the day he often takes a cool bath and rolls in the mud. Very likely he goes into the water many times for the same reason as the elephant. He is tormented by flies and stinging insects. Like the elephant he, too, has a feathered friend. ”

“ These animals are found in Bengal, Siam, China, and in several countries of Africa; but are far less numerous than the elephant, and of sequestered solitary habits. The female produces only one at a birth; and at the age of two years the horn is only an inch long, and at six only of the length of nine inches. The rhinoceros is not ferocious, unless provoked, when he exhibits paroxysms of rage and madness, and is highly dangerous to those who encounter him. He runs with great swiftness, and rushes through brakes and woods with an energy to which every thing yields. ”

“ Except that he is a huge, nearly hairless beast who likes to wallow in the mud and water, the rhinoceros is not in the least like the hippopotamus. His legs, while thick, are longer, and lift his body higher from the ground. His head tapers to a pointed muzzle, and he has the upright, nervous ears of the horse. A regular wild horse in armor he is, for his thick, leathery skin is laid on him in folds that overlap at the natural joints of his body. Having such a weapon right between and below his eyes, where it is always insight, the rhinoceros doesn't miss many chances of using his nose-horn. ”

“ The black rhinoceros is smaller than the white, and, in spite of his heavy body, can run faster than a horse. He is given to sudden fits of passion, nobody knows what for, and then he will burst out into loud snorts, and dash at the nearest bushes with his horn, sometimes digging for hours at the ground round the roots, till he has pulled them up and worked off his bad temper both at once. ”

“ The handles 93 of daggers are always, in Abyssinia, made of this horn, and these being the only works to which they are applied, is one of the reasons why I have said we should not rashly pronounce that the Asiatic rhinoceros has but one horn, merely because the foremost, or round horn, is the only one of the many that have been sent from India. In Abyssinia we seldom see the hunters at the pains to cut off or bring to market the second horn of the rhinoceros they have slain, because, being flat, in place of round, it has not diameter or substance enough to serve for the uses just spoken of ”

“ In old books on Indian sports the rhinoceros is depicted as charging the elephants, and attempting to spear them with its horn, if not in the act of goring their bodies. This is, however, erroneous, as none of the three named species of Asiatic rhinoceros use their horns in this manner, but employ for offence their sharp, triangular lower tusks, with which they make lateral thrusts and lunges after the manner of a wild boar. African rhinoceroses, on the other hand, have no tusks, and consequently have to rely on their horns—always two in number—for both attack and defence. ”

“ With the exception of the elephant, the rhinoceros is the largest of all land animals, and in point of ugliness he is quite unequalled. In appearance he is something like an enormous pig, with a horn on the end of his nose, and a skin so thick that a leaden rifle-ball will not ordinarily pierce it.
But in spite of his ill-temper, of which hunters are never tired of speaking, the rhinoceros certainly has a love of fun. An English hunter in South Africa had gone to bed in his travelling wagon one night, leaving his native servants feasting around the camp fire. ”

“ For, whilst the horn of the rhinoceros is merely a dermal production, a conglomeration of hairs cemented into one dense mass as hard as bone, and answering the purpose of a defensive weapon, besides being used for digging up the roots on which the animal lives ”

“ The Indian Rhinoceros
In this animal the hide falls into great folds upon the shoulders and in front of the thighs, while there are smaller folds upon the neck and the hind quarters. The sides of the body are marked [204] with a large number of round projections, sometimes as much as an inch in diameter, which look very much like the rivets in the iron plates of a boiler. When fully grown this animal stands rather over five feet in height at the shoulder.
The Indian rhinoceros has only one horn, which is generally about a foot long. ”

“ Mary had collected a great many facts about the rhinoceros; and she made it appear pretty clearly, that the allusion in Scripture to the strength and untameableness of the unicorn, are much more applicable to the rhinoceros than to{233} any species of antelope, all of which are remarkably deficient in strength, and naturally timid. She found in some book, that the derivation of the Scripture name Reem, both in the Hebrew and the Ethiopic, implies erectness; and though the rhinoceros is by no means a very erect animal, yet his horn certainly is so, as it stands perpendicular to the face ”

“ If you will spare my life I will give you a dead rhinoceros. Let twenty men go with me to bring the body to your palace.”
304The king and his courtiers laughed loud and long. However, just to see what would come of it, the king ordered twenty men to go with the rabbit. They were guided by the rabbit to the spot where the rhinoceros lay dead, and with great exertion they dragged the body to the palace. Every one was very glad, because the horn of a rhinoceros is good for curing many diseases. ”

“ Rhinoceroses are dirty creatures and love to roll in mud, as their skins constantly show. They stand or lie about in the shade all day long, and in the evening steal out somewhere between nine and twelve to the nearest fountain, and after they have drunk their fill, they go for a long walk. It is very funny to see them taking out their young. The little rhinoceros always walks in front, and if the mother gets the scent of an enemy, they both break into a sharp trot, and the mother guides her child by keeping her horn against its side, and pressing it in the direction she wishes to go. ”

“ Besides its having a skin without plaits, it has two horns on the forehead, so loose that they clash against one another, and make a noise when the animal is running: then he has one of these only that are moveable, which he turns to one side or the other when he chooses to dig roots; an imagination scarcely possible, I think, to any one who has ever seen a rhinoceros. With these loose and clashing horns he diverts himself by throwing a man and horse into the air ”

“ Our oryx led us a mile or more over rocky slopes, always promising and never giving a good chance for a shot, until at last he drew us round the shoulder of a hill—and there, abruptly, was the rhinoceros. The impression was extraordinary. A wide plain of white, withered grass stretched away to low hills broken with rocks. The rhinoceros stood in the middle of this plain, about five hundred yards away, in jet-black silhouette; not a twentieth-century animal at all, but an odd, grim straggler from the Stone Age. ”