The midland journal. (Rising Sun, Md.) 1885-1947, 1894-03-02
LAST OF THE UNIcoRNs.
Extinction of the White Rhinoceros In ItA
South African Haunts.

in the present century emerged from
the realm of myth into that of scien-
tific knowledge, has within the present
year 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-
gland to enrich the Natural History
museum Thus the largest of modern
quadrupeds, excepting the elephant,
becomes extinct, along with the beau
tiful quagga, the dodo, the great aux
and other noteworthy members of the
animal kingdom which have vanished
from the world before the rapacity OF
man.
The white rhinoceros demands some
special obituary notice. partly because
of his extraordinary physical charac.
teristics and partly because of the part
he and his kin have played in legend
and in heraldry. Every schoolboy, as
Macaulay would say, is familiar with
the conventional figure of the unicorn,
q sort of horse-shaped brute with
single horn protruding from it's fore
head, And every schoolboy has prob.
tAGAy bSGi tolO uCNCI w dS
such a creature, save in imagination;
which is doubtless quite true. Yet
modern science not only destroys
some old-time beliefs, but vindi.
Gates others, and shows many
grotesque fairy tale to have basis of
solid fact Shakespeare repeated not
myth, but truth, in speaking of the
poison which the toad distills. Mid.
summer madness and moon madness
are recognized as facts by the latest
science. And if no man ever saw in
life the lind-worm and the griffin OF
Teutonic legend, we need only to look
into archaeological museum to find
their prototypes
So with the unicorn. For ages it's
only known habitat was on coat of
arms. True, the ancients had written
of it as real, but were they not notori
GUS liars? Herodotus, for example,
with his story of race of dwarfs in
the region of the Mountains of the
Moon and near the sources of the Nile,
was the very prince of liars, until Mr..
Stanley rediscovered those very dwarfs
in that very region, and Emin Pasha
sent some living specimens of them to
Europe The one-horned beast was
similarly discredited until an actual
one-horned rhinoceros was found in In
dia and Sumatra, when folk began to
revise their syllabus of repudiated
legends. Still the Asiatic rhinoceros
was Il poor sort of creature for such
heroic fame, and it was not until the
opening of the present century that
E,.Jl
the uncouth pachyderm. At that time
Burchell discovered, in the region OF
South Africa between the Orange and
Iambesi rivers, the stupendous creature
known as rhinoceros sinus, or, in COM
mon phrase, the white or one-horned
rhinoceros.
This animal was not at all like the
heraldie unicorn. But it was of heroic
mold, and it wore on it's forehead, or
on its snout, one enormous horn, long,
sharp and powerful Huge and un-
wieldly as it was, it was swift of foot;
in temper it was choleric; in valor it
was fearless. Wherefore the classic
legends and the medieval heraldic de-
signs stood at the last approved. The
| unicorn was at last materialized Nor
did the remoteness of its habitat debar
such Identification That very region
was the ancient land of Ophir, familiar
to King Solomon and to the Phoenician
merchants.
But at any rate the great white, one
/ horned rhinoceros was shown by Burch-
ell to be a reality; though, indeed,
neither white nor, strictly speaking,
one-horned. It's color was dirty gray.
almost verging on mouse-color. And
it had two horns, though one was so
small as to be scarcely perceptible; a
mere hump with tuft of stout bris-
ties three or four inches high. The
other real horn was from three to four
feet long, thick and tufted about with
bristles at the base, and curving and
tapering gracefully to hard, sharp
point This might have been for
midable weapon in a battle, though
| the rhinoceros usually dealt with its
| foes by trampling them under foot,
( and used the horn as a rod of guidance
for its young.
| The full-grown white rhinoceros was
seven feet high at the shoulders, and
from fourteen to fifteen feet long, and
| thus in bulk surpassed every other
modern quadruped except the elephant
which it almost rivaled. Its head was
| three or four feet long and held very
| low, its chin being normally only
| few inches from the ground, Its
truncated muzzle was a foot and half
| broad, and designed to facilitate the
cropping of grass, the sole food of the
creature. The brain, placed just be-
meath the big horn, was scarcely as
large as that of man. The eyes were
very small, and so set as to have re-
marla bly, limited range of vision. For
| this reason the animal, when either
pursuing or pursued, invariably ran in
a straight line, and thus was easily
| dolged.
Ia habit the white rhinoceros was
usually more dull, slow and wallowing
than its black, two-horned lzinsman.
But, like the latter, it was singularly
stubborn and perverse. and subject to
! sudden and causelass fits of the most
violent fury, 1t would, at times, for
no conceivable reason, bar the passage
of road with the persistence of the
Greeks at Thermopyl@, or bound from
| its lazy wallowing and pursue some in
offensive passer-by with the utmost
manifestations of ferocious wrath. 1t
was, however, little feared by the ma
tives, who easily avoided its straight
| forward charges and drove their heavy
aseegais into it's side with deadly effect.
The Zulus and Matabeles called it the