The Birmingham age-herald. [volume] (Birmingham, Ala.) 1902-1950, 1909-12-12
CATCHING RH|NO
IS LIVE SPORT
Makes ChiId's Play of Trap
ping Big FeIines
ARE COLOSSAL ANIMALS
Can Only Be Taken When Very Young.
Grown Pigs Are Impossible of
transportation to Land of
Civilization.
From the st. Nicholas Magazine.

From the st. Nicholas Magazine
But trapping the big fellnes is child's
play compared with the work of captur-
ing those numbering, colossal animals of
the big pig family. the rhinoceros and
the hippopotamus.
Too stupid to tame or to break to a
halter and too heavy to transport through
hundreds of miles of wilderness, 1t would
take man half life time to bring one
of these five to six thousand pound crea-
lures out of a jungle into civilization
Therefore the experts only chance Is to
find o. cow with a calf and to capture
the young one.
Compared with the alert. grim exte-
rlor of the felines, there is little in the
appearance of a phlegmatic, ponderous
pig like rhinoceros to indicate Its real
ferociousness. There is hardly a wild an
imal in existence which is more danger
Gus than this rarest of all our menagerie
captives. Awkward as the great creature
appears when at rest, once aroused 1t
dashes through the densest thicket with
the irresistible speed Of an express train.
To catch a rhinoceros the trapper pro-
ceeds with preparations much as would
an explorer bound for a two or three
year expedition into the interior of an
unexplored continent; for the difficulty
confronting him is the three-fold one of
first penetrating a thousand or more miles
into the interior; second, of finding not
only rhinoceros, but a rhinoceros COW
with calf old enough to capture; and,
lastly. of transporting his prize across
hills and mountains and plains, over
rivers and ravines, across swamps and
through forests back to civilization.
Skirting swamps and rivers, the men
are ever on the lookout for the Deep
round spoons, like a pie plate driven into
the mud, for in this wet ground the rhi-
noceros loves to wallow. Frequently FIVE
or six months elapse before the tracks Of
a cow and q calf are picked up.
Noiseless and from well to leeward, the
trapper and his men gradually steal near
er until the cow and the calf are inclosed
in circle. From ahead, out of the maze
of cane and creeper, sounds the uneasy
stamping of the COW. With a half-snort,
half-gr in an instant the rhinoceros
Is all attention. Head raised and nostrils
shifting, she searches the air steadily. At
sight of one of the savages the COW
dashes with the speed of a race horse at
the man, charging the human decoy, and
at that instant the trapper's rife is
heard, and her furious charge Is over,
provided the bullet reaches the heart,
by striking just behind the left foreleg-
| the only vulnerable point in the inch
thick arnor with which the beast is clad.
! Now and then 1t happens that the trap
/ per falls to kill in time-his gun may miss
! fire, Intervening trees may interfere, or
the marksman may miss his aim. Then
| the life of the decoy depends upon his
| own agility. To run to one side before
| the rhinoceros is almost on top of him
| would be fatal, for the swift brute would
overtake him with a few bounds. His
| only hope is to wait until the deadly horn
! Is almost at his feet, and then, with the
| swiftness of nnongoose lodging the aim
! of a cobra, to leap to one side while the
| ponderous creature, unable to turn short
! in time, dashes onward under its own
impetus Twice, three times clever
| native hunter will dodge in this way,
giving the trapper ample time to bring
| down the rhinoceros.
Then comes the tracking of the fright
ened calf, which has fed at the first sign
| of trouble; and soon it Is pushed prod
ded and showed up bridge of log skids
into cage of the bullock-cart.
But even more dangerous is the trap
| ping of the hippopotamus. For although
In itself the ''rhino" is a more savage
| antagonist than the ''river-horse," the
| trapper hunts the former on land and
brings down at safe distance, whereas
In the case Of the hippopotamus he must
| hsht In the same primitive fashion that
savages have used for ages Hand to
| NAV, as 1t were, he must engage this
two-ton monster while standing in the
bow of frail canoe. For the hippopota-
| mus, as its name, the 'river-horse, "
means, is a land-and-water animal and
must be harpooned and brought ashore
before 1t expires, otherwise 1t would sink
| at once to the bottom of the river, the
coveted calf escaping among the other
hippopotami instead of following tho
stricken COW to shore, so that the young
| ster may be caught