III.—THE RHINOCEROS FAMILY (RHINOCEROTIDÆ).
The Rhinoceroses form the third family of the sub-order of Perissodactyla. They are to be found in Africa south of the Sahara Desert, and in Eastern Asia—in India, Java, and Sumatra, &c., where the climate is tropical or sub-tropical. They are represented by several living species, as well as by several extinct forms which ranged, in the later Tertiary times, over nearly the whole of Europe and Northern Asia. The principal characters which are to be observed in the Rhinoceros are the large unwieldy bodies, supported on short, stout legs, terminating in a large callous pad with hoof-bearing toes, the large and long head, the small eyes and ears, and the short tail. All the living species also possess one or two horns, which are placed in the middle line of the head on and above the nose. The horns are to be viewed as a mere appendage to the skin, like hair, for they are only skin deep, and are composed of a series of fibres matted together, and are essentially a mass of hair in which each hair is confluent with those next to it. Horns were present also in all the fossil species excepting one, the Aceratherium, the hornless Rhinoceros of the Miocene Age. The skin in all the Rhinoceroses is very thick, and is converted into a jointed armour in some of the Asiatic species; it is also scantily covered with hair, except in “the Hairy-eared Rhinoceros.” A fossil kind was woolly.
It is a disputed point whether the word Reèm, mentioned several times in the Bible, and translated in the authorised version as Unicorn, is the Rhinoceros or the Urus; the probability seems to be that the latter is intended. The first time Reèm is mentioned in the Bible is in Numbers xxiii. verses 21, 22, to the following effect:—“The Lord his God is with him, and the shout of a king is among them. God brought them out of Egypt; he hath as it were the strength of Reèm.” Whatever animal Reèm may have been, it was a creature evidently of great power, and the strongest known to the prophet. In another passage—Deut. xxxiii. verses 16, 17—we obtain the information that Reèm was a two-horned and not a one-horned animal, and therefore could not possibly have been the Indian Rhinoceros at least, and that it is mentioned at the same time with Bullocks. Other passages speak of Reèm in connection with the plough and harrow, for which its tameless and savage disposition rendered it unfit. It is also spoken of in Isaiah in connection with sacrifices of cattle (chap. xxxiv. verses 6, 7).
Topsel, an author of the sixteenth century, while trying to show that there lived such a creature as the fabled Unicorn, and giving a picture representing it as possessing the horn of the Narwhal, the body of a Horse, and the feet of an Ox, successfully shows Reèm to mean neither a Unicorn nor Rhinoceros, but simply an Ox. He relates:—“That there is such a beast the Scripture itself witnesseth, for David thus speaketh in the 92nd Psalm: Et erigetur cornu meum tanquam, monocerotis—that is, my home shall bee lifteth up as the horne of a unicorn.” He goes on to say: “We have already shown, in the story of the Rhinoceros, that Reèm in Hebrew signifies a Unicorne, although Munster be of another opinion; yet the Septuagints, in the translation of Deut. xxxiii., do translate it a Unicorne, for the Rhinoceros hath not one horne but two. Rabbi Solomon, David Kimchi, and Saadius do always take Reèm and Karas for a Unicorne, and they derive Reèm from Rom, which signifieth Altitudinem, height, because the horne of the Unicorn is lifted up upon high. Hereunto the Arabians agree, which call it Barkeron, and the Persians Bark; the Chaldeans, Remana. In the 39th chapter of Job the Lord speaketh in this manner to Job:—‘Will the Unicorne rest and serve thee, or tarry beside thy cratches? Canst thou bind the Unicorne with a halter to thy plough to make furrows? or will he make plaine the clots of the valleys?’ ... Whereby God Himself must needs be traduced if there be no Unicorne in the world.” We may therefore conclude that Reèm was one of the Oxen wild in those times in Palestine. It, probably, was the great wild Ox, or Urus, which formerly abounded in the forests of Macedonia, and was hunted in the forests of Germany as late as the tenth century after Christ.
The Rhinoceros was first seen at Rome, according to Pliny, in the games given by Pompey to the Roman people. He describes it as being possessed of one horn on its nose, which it sharpens on a stone before it fights, and that when it fights with the Elephant it attempts to rip its belly open. The earliest time the animal was mentioned by name was by Agatharchides, who describes it as fighting in the manner above alluded to. In both these instances it is evident that the one-horned Asiatic species is meant. The African Rhinoceros, according to Dion Cassius, was for the first time brought before the notice of the Romans in B.C. 39, in the games given by Augustus to celebrate his victory over Cleopatra. It was exhibited along with a Hippopotamus, and both animals were in all likelihood obtained from the Upper Nile.
Probably the first Rhinoceros ever seen by modern Europeans was a one-horned species, the R. unicornis, sent from India to Emanuel, King of Portugal, in 1513. A sketch was sent from Lisbon to Nürnberg, and a most extraordinary engraving was made by Albert Dürer, from which Gesner, Topsel, &c., took copies. This animal was made to appear in a wonderful suit of armour beautifully decorated, and supplied with a second horn on the shoulders, resembling the point of that of the Narwhal. Topsel’s description of the Rhinoceros is most ludicrous—“First of all, that there is such a beast in the world both Pliny, Solinus, Diodorus, Ælianus, Lampridius, and others, doe yeald erefrigable testimony.” He then goes on to say “The picture here expressed was taken by Gesner from the beast alive at Lisbon, in Portugale.... Eucherius saith that the Rhinoceros hath two hornes in his nose, but that is utterly false, as you may see by the picture.... The Rhinoceros cast up a Beare into the aire even as a Bull would do a ball which were laid upon his two hornes; we shall not neede to apply Gemino cornu to the Bull, as Politianus doth, but rather take it figuratively for a strong horne, and if it must needs be litterall, it is apparent by the picture that there is another little horne, not upon the nose, but upon the wither of the beast.... When they are to fight they whet their horne upon a stone; and there is not only a discord betwixt these beasts and Elephants for their food, but a naturall description and enmity: for it is confidently affirmed that when the Rhinoceros which was at Lisbone was brought into the presence of an Elephant, the Elephant ran away from him.... Hee (the Rhinoceros) is taken by the same means that the Unicorn is taken, for it is said by Albertus, Isidorus, and Alumnus, that above all other creatures they love virgins, and that unto them they will come, be they never so wilde, and fall asleep before them, so being asleep they are easily taken and carried away.” Topsel then goes on to inform us that “all the later physicians attribute the virtue of the Unicorn’s horne to the Rhinoceros’s horn, but they are deceived by imitation of Isidorus and Albertus, for there is none of the ancient Græcians that have ever observed any medicines in the Rhinoceros. The Indians made bottles of their skins, wherein they put their lycion, or succum medicatum.”
The first Rhinoceros brought alive to England was in 1685, and another was shown throughout a great part of Europe in 1739, and another in 1741. Parsons[266] described and figured the Rhinoceros of 1739, and refers to that of 1741, which Cuvier says he believes to be the same animal afterwards shown in Paris in 1749, painted by Oudry, and afterwards engraved by Edwards and figured by Albinus. It was the one described by Daubenton, as well as by Meckel. The one of which Cuvier gives the osteology was the fifth brought to Europe. It arrived at Versailles in 1771, and died in 1793, at the age of about twenty-six years. Another Rhinoceros arrived from the East Indies in 1790, as a present to Mr. Dundas. This was afterwards purchased for £700, and exhibited at Exeter ’Change and also about England generally. Another animal, which was destined for the menagerie of the Emperor of Germany, arrived from India in 1800, but died in London soon after its arrival. It was dissected by Mr. Thomas, and his observations thereon were published in the “Philosophical Transactions.” Shortly afterwards an eighth arrived, which subsequently went to Germany. Since this it has become common in the Zoological Gardens in various parts of Europe, and, in 1878, the genus was represented in the Regent’s Park by no less than five different species and varieties.
SKELETON OF THE RHINOCEROS.
The skeleton of the Rhinoceros, viewed generally, has a resemblance to that of the little Hyrax, the Tapir, and the Horse. The skull is much elevated at the base, being somewhat of a pyramidal form, and the nasal bones curve upwards and downwards, and are of such a size and thickness, in order to support one or more immense horns, that they are quite unparalleled for their development in any other existing quadruped. The nasal bones, together with the pre-maxillary and maxillary bones, form the general contour for the external apertures of the nostrils. This is peculiar, and found in no other animal, with the exception of the Tapir.