Its chief food is canes and shrubs. The flesh somewhat resembles pork in taste, though of a stronger flavor and coarser grain. It can be successfully hunted only by the aid of elephants, and is now protected by law against extermina tion. It lives well in captivity and specimens may be seen in many zoological gardens, but it does not breed in captivity.
The Javanese or Sondaic rhinoceros (Rh. sondaicus) is distinguished from the Indian spe cies by smaller size, shorter horn and differ ences in the disposition and tesselated appear ance of the skin-folds, which is also somewhat more hairy. It occurs in the Sunderbunds of India, in Bengal and in the Malayan Islands. The Sumatran rhinoceros (Rh. sumotrensis) is well distinguished by having two horns, the rear one like a big knob, and in being clothed with a comparatively thick coat of hairs. Its range is similar to the Sondaic species, but it also extends to Borneo. A variety living in the Assamese swamps has been called the hairy eared rhinoceros (Rh. lasiotis). The upper lip of this species forms a short proboscis and it gets its food mainly by browsing shrubs.
The African rhinoceroses are two, both dif fering from the Asiatic group in dentition, and in the absence of the armor-like plates and folds in the hide, which is hairless and lead colored. Considerable variation exists, so that half a dozen or moire distinct forms have been named, but all seem referable to two species,— the ordinary widespread Africa* rhinoceros (Rh. bicornis) and the square-mouthed (Rh. simus). The former is to be found, except where killed off by civilization, throughout all southern and eastern Africa outside of the equatorial forests, and it does not show the fondness for swamps which characterizes the Asiatic congeners. Its front horn is broad and raised as on a base, sharp-pointed and curved slightly backward, while the hinder horn is usually shorter and more conical. The head is rounded. This animal appears to be of ferocious disposition, and is quick and active and greatly feared by the natives. The food consists largely of roots, which it digs out of the earth by aid of its horn. The side of the horn is thus fre quently rubbed by contact with the earth. This long horn may attain a length of three to three and one-half feet, and straight ramrods are made from it. The lip is somewhat pointed and prehensile and the animal browses much of the time. It is justly regarded by hunters as one of the most dangerous animals in the .world to meet and it often charges from ambush or dashes frantically through a camp, so that many persons have lost their lives by it outside of chosen encounters.
The square-mouthed, white or Burchell's rhinoceros is a northerly and now almost ex tinct species (Rh. simus) which dwelt in east Africa and was distinguished by its huge size, a male standing six and one-half feet high at the shoulder, with the front horn 50 or more inches in length. Its muzzle is short and square, the upper lip being short and its food consisting altogether of grass. Its general
habits otherwise are similar to those of the other species.
Fossil Rhinoceroses.— These animals begin to be recognizable toward the end of the Eocene Period, both in Europe and North America; but the first form of which much definite knowledge is possessed is Ifyracodon of the Lower Miocene (White River beds) of the eastern slope of the Rocky Mountains. This was a comparatively small, slightly built ani mal with a longer neck and limbs than later rhinoceroses show and no trace of a horn is perceptible. Like other early forms it was tridactyl, but in some a rudimentary fourth toe (the fifth) remains on the fore foot. The holarcticadants were of a habit of life not unlike thatof the hippopotamus, as is shown by the height of the eyes and nostrils and the tusk-like teeth. They had no horns. gIn North America,)) says Woodward, ta normal horn does not appear ever to have been acquired, and the race disappeared before the dose of the Pliocene. . . . In the Old World, however, the gradual development of the horn can be dearly traced?) The earliest definite European remains are of a hornless rhinoceros (Aceratherium), which seems to have ranted over all Europe and Asia, and very similar species lived simultaneously in western North America. One of the latter (Diceratherium), of small size, had two callosities on its nose side by side and four digits in the front foot. Typical horned rhinoceroses are to be traced as far back as the middle of the Miocene, and they had all the essential features Of the mod ern ones and no one-horned fossils have been found outside of the Indo-Malayan region. The upper Pliocene species bore horns so large that the septum between the nostrils was ossi fied for their support. This feature is notice able in the species (Rh. leptorhinus) common in England in the time immediately subsequent to the Ice Age, and reaches its maximum in the great woolly rhinoceros (Rh. tichorhinsis), whose bones are found in the cave deposits and river gravels from Great Britain to China and whose mummified remains have been taken, like those of the mammoth from the ice-cliffs of arctic It had immense horns and was covered with dense woolly hair. Another huge, but aberrant rhinoceros (named (Elasmother ism) roamed over Russia and northern Asia at the same Pleistocene period, which was sometimes 15 feet long, and bore an immense horn rising from between the eyes.
Bibliography.— Consult authorities on zool ogy and sport in India and in Africa. especially Roosevelt, T., (Life Histories of African Game Animals) (New York 1914) ; Blandford, W. T., of British India) (London 1888-91). For the paleontology of rhinoceroses, consult Osborn, H. F., (The Extinct Rhinoceroses) (Memoirs of the American Museum of Natural Vol. I, Part III, New York 1898) ; id., (P logeny of the Rhinoceroses of Europe) (Bulletin of the American Museum of Natural History, Vol. XIII, ib. 1900).