the giraffe, the hippopotamus, the gerenuk, and
the camel, one of Africa's unbelievable animals. Nobody has bettered
Kipling's description of him in the Just-so Stories: "A horn on his
nose, piggy eyes, and few manners." He lives a self-centred life,
wrapped up in the porcine contentment that broods within nor looks
abroad over the land. When anything external to himself and his food
and drink penetrates to his intelligence he makes a flurried fool of
himself, rushing madly and frantically here and there in a hysterical
effort either to destroy or get away from the cause of disturbance. He
is the incarnation of a living and perpetual Grouch.

Generally he lives by himself, sometimes with his spouse, more rarely
still with a third that is probably a grown-up son or daughter. I
personally have never seen more than three in company. Some observers
have reported larger bands, or rather collections, but, lacking other
evidence, I should be inclined to suspect that some circumstances of
food or water rather than a sense of gregariousness had attracted a
number of individuals to one locality.

The rhinoceros has three objects in life: to fill his stomach with food
and water, to stand absolutely motionless under a bush, and to imitate
ant hills when he lies down in the tall grass. When disturbed at any
of these occupations he snorts. The snort sounds exactly as though the
safety valve of a locomotive had suddenly opened and as suddenly shut
again after two seconds of escaping steam. Then he puts his head down
and rushes madly in some direction, generally upwind. As he weighs
about two tons, and can, in spite of his appearance, get over the ground
nearly as fast as an ordinary horse, he is a truly imposing sight,
especially since the innocent bystander generally happens to be upwind,
and hence in the general path of progress. This is because the rhino's
scent is his keenest sense, and through it he becomes aware, in the
majority of times, of man's presence. His sight is very poor indeed; he
cannot see clearly even a moving object much beyond fifty yards. He can,
however, hear pretty well.

The novice, then, is subjected to what he calls a "vicious charge" on
the part of the rhinoceros, merely because his scent was borne to the
beast from upwind, and the rhino naturally runs away upwind. He opens
fire, and has another thrilling adventure to relate. As a matter of
fact, if he had approached from the other side, and then aroused