RHINOCEROS, a massive hoofed mammal of the family Rhinocerotider., characterized prominently by its nasal horns, the species of which are now confined to South Africa and southeastern Asia, although in past ages of world-wide distribution. These animals are all of large size and ungainly form, and the very thick skin is usually thrown into folds of more or less definite kind, and as a rule is very sparsely haired. The limbs are stout and com paratively short, and terminate in round feet with three toes on each foot, each toe encased in a hoof. The skull is of pyramidal form, with a confluent orbit and temporal fossa, and the nasal bones are very prominently developed, and support one or more °horns," which grow one behind the other. The muzzle is extended by a more or less elongated pointed and pre hensile upper lip; the incisors and canines are diminished hut functional in the African species, and entirely wanting in adults of the Asiatic species. The check-teeth are massive and their crowns exhibit complexly folded ridges, varying much with the species. The horn of the Rhinoceros i3 of epidermic origin based upon thickened °bosses" of the underly ing hone, but really formed of fibres of horn practically bristles, agglutinated as they grow.
When two horns are developed, the hinder one is borne by the frontal bones, and is situated in the middle line behind the front horn. The front horn is generally much larger than the hinder one, the latter, when larger, possessing a different shape from the front structure, They serve many useful purposes in savage economy, but are of little service in civilized arts, although formerly the horn was consid ered to have medicinal and even magical virtues, especially in the detection of poisoned wine.
Although subdivided by some zoologists, the rhinoceroses may properly be regarded as form ing only a single genus, Rhinoceros, with five existing species, and some extinct species, to which must be added several genera known only by fossil remains.
The most familiar species is the typical one horned or Indian rhinoceros (Rh. indices), which, like all the Asiatic species, has the skin thrown into very definite folds, corresponding to the regions of the body. The horn of this spe
cies is black, very thick, from one to (rarely) two feet long and rises from the tip of the nose. The upper lip is very large and over hangs the lower; it is furnished with strong muscles and is employed by the animal some what as the elephant uses his trunk. The skin is naked, rough, extremely thick and of a pur plish brown hue. About the neck it is gathered into large folds; a fold also extends between the shoulders and fore-legs and another from the hinder part of the back to the thigh. It is naturally soft and easily penetrated by a rifle. ball or hunting knife, but when suitably dried is exceedingly hard and polishable. The tail is slender, flat at the end and furnished at the sides with very stiff black hairs. The animal was well known to the ancients when it ranged over most of the peninsula of India and was introduced into the games of the circus by Pom pey. From the time of the fall of the Roman Empire, however, it was lost sight of so com pletely, that prior to the 16th century, natural ists were of opinion that it had never existed, or, if so, that it was extinct. When the Portu guese, however, opened the way to India, these animals again became known, and many were introduced into Europe, a historic one, sent by an Indian potentate to the king of Portugal in 1513, stood as model for a well-known drawing by A. Diirer. This species is now much re stricted in range and not to be found outside of the plain of Assam, where it confines itself to the marshy grass-jungles, where, like its rela tive, the tapir, it is fond of wallowing in the mud. Though possessed of great strength and a match for either the tiger or the elephant, it is quiet and inoffensive unless provoked. _ The female produces one at a birth. The growth of the young is very gradual, as, at the age of two years, it scarcely attains half the height of the adult, which is usually about five feet at the shoulder; such a specimen will measure about nine and -one-half feet from the snout to the root of the tail. The sight of this rhinoceros is by no means acute, but, on the contrary, its senses of smelling and hearing are very keen.