The Big Stone Gap post. [volume] (Big Stone Gap, Wise County, Va.) 1892-1928, 1894-04-05
LAST OF THs uslcoRMs.
t's,'netinn e Tho white r;l,noeoros in /.

tt\'NbV Ct3CES,CNl 3IOBH
the realm of myth into Shat OF scien-
tihc knowledge, has within the present
ys',r PASSED into the realm Of history.
Reports from South Africa declare that
the last white rhinoceros has been
killed, and that its skeleton, hide and
horn are now being shipped to En-
%iand to enrich the Natural History
museum. Thus tnc largest of modern
quadrnpeds, excepting the elephant,
becomes extinct, along with the beau
;ifnl qua%g;h the tlodo, the great aux
and other noteworthy members OF the
ANNA! kingdom which have vanished
from tie world before the rapacity of
man.
Inc white rhiOoccroS demands some
special obituary notice. partly because
of his extraordinary physical charac-
'oris.ics aud partly because OF the part
he an,l his kin have played in legend
and III heraldry. Every schoolboy, Us
Macaulay would So. is familiar with
the conventional figure Of the unicorn.
:. sort OF horae-shap.d brute with Il
siaglc horn protrudin@ from lis fore
head. .>nd every scloolb"y has prob
ably been told that there never was
such a creature save il imagination;
which is doubtless quite true Yet
modern science nct only destroys
some old-timc beliefs, but vindi-
Gates others, and shows many a
grotesqu- fairy tale TO have basis OF
solid fact. Shakespeare repeated not Il
myth, but truth, III speaking of the
poison which the toad d;stills. Mid
summer madness and moon madness
arc recognized as facts by the latest
scierce And if no man ever saw in
life the lind-worln and tho griffin OF
Teutonic legend, we need only TO look
into a chronological museum to lind
their prototypes.
So with the unicorn. For ages its
oily known habitat WIS on Il coat OF
arms True, the ancients had written
of i: as real. but were they not notori-
Gus lars llcrodotus, for example,
with his story Of race of dwarfS in
the region of The Mountains of the
Moon and near the sources Of the Mic,
WAS the very prince o: liars, until MIR.
Stanley rclscovcrcd those very dwarfs
in that vcrr region. and Emin Pasha
sent some living specimens Of them to
Eur ,pa The one-horncd beast was
similarly djscrcdited until an actual
onc-hornc,l rhinoccros was found in In
DIX. and Sumatra. when folk began TO
revise their syllabus of rcpudiatcd
legends still the Asiatic rhinoceros
was a poor sort Of creature for suci,
heroic famc. and il vas not until the
opening OF the present century that
lie unicorn was fully Identified with
the unconth pachydern. At that time
Hrrchcll discovered, i'll the region Of
south Africa between the Orange and
ZAnbc<i rivers, the stupcndous creature
known as rhinoccros sinus, or, in com
mon phrase. the white or one horned
rfiuouerOs
This animal was not at all llko the
hei..ld;c unicorn. But it was OF heroic
mold. aud it wore on its forehead, OF
on its snout, one enormous horn, long
sharp and powerful Huge ant I'm
w;cldlv AS it was, it was swift OF foot
in temper it was choleric; in valor il
WAS fearless. Wherefore the classic
legends and the medieval hcraldic dc
signs stood at the last approved. The
unicorn was at last mntcrialized. MOI
did the rcmotencss Of its habitat debal
such Identification. That very region
was the ancient land Of Ophir familiar
to King Solomon and to the Phnniciar
merchants.
nut at any rate the great white. one
horned rhinoceros was shown by Burch
ell to DC reality; though, indeed
neither white nor, strictly speaking
one-horncd It's color was dirty gray
almost verging on mouse-color. Ano
it had two horns, though one was sc
small as to be scarcely perceptible; 8
mere hump with a tuft of stout bris
ties three or four inches high. The
other real horn was from three to forl
feet long, thick and tufted about Will
bristles at tho base, and curving ant
tapering gracefully to hard, SHARP
point. This might have been for
midable weapon in a battle, though
the rhinoceros usually dealt with it:
foes Ivy trampling them under foot
and used the horn as rod of guidance
Tor its young.
The full-grown white rhinoccros wa:
seven feet high 1T tho shoulders, ane
from fourteen to fifteen feet long, and
thus in bulk surpassed every other
modern quadrupcd except the elephant
Which it almost rivalcd. It's head was
three or four feet long and held very
low, it's chin being normally only {
fcw inches from the ground. Iti
truncatca nuzzlc was foot and hall
broad. and designed to facilitate the
cropping of grass, the sole food of the
creature. The brain, placed just be-
meath the big horp was scarcely a:
large as that OF man. The eyes were
very small. and SO set as to have q re
inarllably limited range OF vision. Fo,
this. reason the animal. when either
! pursuing or pursued, Invariably ran In
d straight line, and thus was easily
lodged
ia habit the white rhinoceros was
usually more dull. slow nnd wallowing
than it's black, two-horned kinsman.
But, like the latter, it was singularly
stubborn and perverse, and subject to
sudden and causeless fits Of the most
violent fury. 1t would, at times, foI
no conceivable reason, bar the passage
OF . road with the persistence of the
Greeks at Thermopylp, or bound from
its lazy wallowing and pursue some in
offensive passer-by with the utmost
manifestations of fcrocious wrath. II
was, however, little feared by tho mo-
tiycs who easily avoided its straight