s as the latter he
may be approached quite near without much danger. Each day he also goes
to a favorite wallowing place, where he rolls in the red dirt and
emerges from this dirt bath a dull red rhino. In the rhino country
dozens of these red dirt rolling places may be found, each one trampled
smooth for an area of fifteen or twenty feet in evidence of the great
number of times it has been used by one or more rhinos. This dirt bath
is a defensive measure against the hordes of ticks that infest the
rhino. It is a subject for wonder that the six or eight tick birds do
not keep the rhino free of ticks, and it has even been argued by some
naturalists that the rhino bird does not eat ticks, but merely uses the
rhino as a convenient resting-place. Also perhaps they enjoy the ride.
We had planned to get a rhino bird and perform an autopsy on him in
order to analyze his contents, but did not do so.

[Photograph: The Ford of Tana River]

[Photograph: The Baby Rhino]

After the rhino has taken his dirt wallow, and looks fine in his new red
coat, he then slowly and painstakingly proceeds to kill time during the
rest of the day. If danger threatens he becomes exceedingly nervous and
excited. His anxiety is quite acute. In vain he tries to locate the
danger, rushing one way for a few yards, then the other way, and finally
all ways at once. His tail is up and he is snorting like a steam engine.
When he rushes toward you in this attitude it looks very much as though
he were charging you with the purpose of trampling you to flinders. As a
matter of fact, or, rather, opinion, he is merely trying to locate where
you are in order that he may run the other way. He looks terrifying, but
in reality is probably badly terrified himself. He would give a good
deal to know which way to run, and finally becomes so excited and
nervous that he starts frantically in some direction, hoping for the
best. If this rush happens to be in your direction you call it a charge
from an infuriated rhino; if not, you say that he looked nasty and was
about to charge, but finally ran away in another direction. In most
rhino charges it is my opinion that the rhino is too rattled to know
what he is doing, and, instead of charging maliciously, he is merely
trying to get away as fast as possible. And in such cases the hunter
blazes away at him, wounds him, and the rhino blindly charges the flash.

[Drawing: _Trying to Provoke a Charge_]

It was our wish to get mo