Eccentricities of the Animal Creation.

by John Timbs

Dion Cassius speaks of the Rhinoceros killed in the circus with a Hippopotamus in the show given by Augustus to celebrate his victory over Cleopatra; he says that the Hippopotamus and this animal were then first seen and killed at Rome. The Rhinoceros then slain is thought to have been African, and two-horned.

The Rhinoceros clearly described by Strabo, as seen by him, was one-horned. That noticed by Pausanias as "the Bull of Ethiopia," was two-horned, and he describes the relative position of the horns.

Wood, in his "Zoography," gives an engraving of the coin of Domitian (small Roman brass), on the reverse of which is the distinct form of a two-horned Rhinoceros: its exhibition to the Roman people, probably of the very animal represented on the coin, is particularly described in one of the epigrams attributed to Martial, who lived in the reigns of Titus and Domitian. By the description of the epigram it appears that a combat between a Rhinoceros and a Bear was intended, but that it was very difficult to irritate the more unwieldy animal so as to make him display his usual ferocity; at length, however, he tossed the bear from his double horn, with as much facility as a bull tosses to the sky the bundles placed for the purpose of enraging him. Thus far the coin and the epigram perfectly agree as to the existence of the double horn; but, unfortunately, commentators and antiquaries were not to be convinced that a Rhinoceros could have more than one horn, and have at once displayed their sagacity and incredulity in their explanations on the subject.

Two, at least, of the two-horned Rhinoceroses were shown at Rome in the reign of Domitian. The Emperors Antoninus, Heliogabalus, and Gordian also exhibited Rhinoceroses. Cosmas speaks expressly of the Ethiopian Rhinoceros as having two horns, and of its power of moving them.

The tractability of the Asiatic Rhinoceros has been confirmed by observers in the native country of the animal. Bishop Heber saw at Lucknow five or six very large Rhinoceroses, of which he found that prints and drawings had given him a very imperfect conception. They were more bulky animals, and of a darker colour than the Bishop supposed; though the latter difference might be occasioned by oiling the skin. The folds of their skin also surpassed all which the Bishop had expected. Those at Lucknow were quiet and gentle animals, except that one of them had a feud with horses. They had sometimes howdahs, or chaise-like seats, on their backs, and were once fastened in a carriage, but only as an experiment, which was not followed up. The Bishop, however, subsequently saw a Rhinoceros (the present of Lord Amherst to the Guicwar), which was so tamed as to be ridden by a Mohout quite as patiently as an elephant.

No two-horned Rhinoceros seems to have been brought alive to Europe in modern times. Indeed, up to a comparatively late period, their form was known only by the horns which were preserved in museums; nor did voyagers give any sufficient details to impart any clear idea of the form of the animal. The rude figure given by Aldrovandus, in 1639, leaves no doubt that, wretched as it is, it must have been taken from a two-horned Rhinoceros.

Dr. Parsons endeavoured to show that the one-horned Rhinoceros always belonged to Asia, and the two-horned Rhinoceros to Africa; but there are two-horned Rhinoceroses in Asia, as well as in Africa. Flacourt saw one in the Bay of Soldaque, near the Cape of Good Hope, at a distance. Kolbe and others always considered the Rhinoceros of the Cape as two-horned; but Colonel Gordon seems to be the first who entirely detailed the species with any exactness. Sparrman described the Cape Rhinoceros, though his figure of the animal is stiff and ill-drawn. At this period it was well known that the Cape species was not only distinguished by having two horns from the Indian Rhinoceros then known, but also by an absence of the folds of the skin so remarkable in the latter.

We should here notice the carelessness, to call it by the mildest name, of Bruce, who gave to the world a representation of a two-horned Rhinoceros from Abyssinia, with a strongly folded skin. The truth appears to be that the body of the animal figured by Bruce was copied from that of the one-horned Rhinoceros given by Buffon, to which Bruce added a second horn. Salt proved that the Abyssinian Rhinoceros is two-horned, and that it resembles that of the Cape.