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savage and intractable, and it is by no means easily obtained, not only from its fleetness, but from the nature of the localities it frequents, where, like the wild ass of Thibet, in the "wilderness and the barren land is his dwelling; he scorneth the multitude of the city." Nevertheless, zebras have been taken to Europe and placed in the menageries. All attempts to domesticate them, or to train them to the service of man, have failed; about a century ago, however, the King of Portugal had four of them, which he sometimes drove harnessed to his carriage.

The zebra is larger than the wild ass, sometimes attaining the size of a mature Arab horse. This elegant animal is a native of the Cape of Good Hope, and probably the whole of southern, and a part of eastern, Africa. Travellers state that they have met with it in Congo, Guinea, and Abyssinia. It delights in mountainous countries, and, although it is less rapid than the wild ass, its paces are so good that the best horses are alone able to overtake it. The zebra lives in droves, but is very shy in its nature; it is endowed with powers of sight that enable it to perceive from great distances the approach of hunters. It is, consequently, very difficult to capture a mature living specimen.

That it is impossible to reduce this quadruped to a domestic state is currently believed. In contradiction, we would state that a female zebra, which had been caught young, and sent by the Governor of the Cape of Good Hope to the Zoological Gardens in Paris, was so tractable that it allowed itself to be approached and led almost as readily as a horse. The zebra was not unknown to the ancients, who called it hippo-tigris. A historian relates that the Emperor Caracalla killed on a certain day, in one of the circus combats, an elephant, a rhinoceros, a tiger, and a hippotigris. Diodorus of Sicily speaks of the hippo-tigris, although in rather obscure terms. The kings of Persia, during certain religious festivals, were accustomed to sacrifice zebras to the sun, a stock of which were kept by these potentates in some of the islands of the Red Sea.

The Zebra's Native Country.

The zebra is only to be met with in the most eastern and the most southern parts of Africa, from Ethiopia to the Cape of Good Hope, and thence to Congo; it exists neither in Europe, Asia nor America, nor even in all the northern parts of Africa; those which some travellers tell us they have seen at the Brazils have been transported thither from Africa; those which others are reported to have seen in Persia, and in Turkey, have been brought from Ethiopia; and, in short, those that we have seen in our own country are almost all from the Cape of Good Hope. This point of Africa is their true climate, their native country, and where the

Dutch have employed all their care to subject them and to render them. tame, without having been hitherto able to succeed. One that was captured was very wild when he arrived at the royal menagerie in France; and he was never entirely tamed: nevertheless, he was broken for the saddle; but two men held the bridle, while a third mounted him. The mouth of the zebra is very hard; his ears so sensitive, that he winces whenever any person goes to touch them. He is restive, like a vicious horse, and obstinate as a mule; but there is reason to believe, that if the zebra were accustomed to obedience and tameness from his earliest years he would become as mild as the horse, and might be substituted in his place.

The Horned Rhinoceros.

Now that we are describing the marvels of animal life in the tropics,. there is another singular quadruped, a monstrous creature, that deserves especial mention. Rhinoceroses were much more numerous in remote eras than they are at present. There have existed numerous different species, several of them living in temperate and even in cold climatesas France, Germany, and Russia. These animals are no longer found, except in the hottest portions of the old World. Aristotle says nothing of the Rhinoceros; but Athenæus, Pliny, and Strabo mention it in their works. The first Rhinoceros mentioned in history figured in a fête given in Egypt by one of the Kings. Later, Pompey, Augustus, the emperors Antoninus and Heliogabalus, brought some into Europe, and made them fight in the Coliseum, at Rome, sometimes with the hippopotamus, and sometimes with the elephant. We must then pass on to the sixteenth century to find in European history any new mention of these animals. In 1513, Emanuel, the King of Portugal, received from India. a one-horned rhinoceros. Albert Durer made an engraving of it on wood, which was for a long time copied and reproduced in works on natural history. Only this representation of it is very inexact; for Albert Durer had executed it after an incorrect drawing sent him from Lisbon into Germany. During the eighteenth century, a rhinoceros was brought to Holland; two were taken to London at the end of the same century. The menagerie at Versaillés bought one of these last-named animals, which very soon died. Since the beginning of our century civilized na-. tions have received many of these gigantic and curious quadrupeds.

The great Indian rhinoceros inhabits the regions situated beyond the Ganges, and especially the valley of Opam, along the base of the eastern Himalaya Mountains. Its head is short and triangular; its mouth, of a moderate size, has an upper lip, which is longer than the lower, pointed

and movable. It has in each jaw two strong incisive teeth. Its eyes are small; its ears are rather long and movable. The horn upon its nose is pointed, conical, not compressed, sometimes two feet in length, and

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THE INDIAN RHINOCEROS.

slightly curved backwards. This singular weapon is composed of a cluster of hairs closely adherent; for when the point is blunted, it is often seen divided into fibres resembling the hairs of a brush. This horn is,

however, very solid, hard, of a brownish red on the outside, of a golden yellow inside, and black in the centre.

A Ponderous Armor.

The neck of this animal is short and covered with folds and creases. Its shoulders are thick-set and heavy; its ponderous body is covered with a skin remarkable for the deep wrinkles or creases with which it is furrowed, backwards and across the forequarters, and across the thighs. Thus, as it were, to all appearance cut up into plaits of mail, the great Indian rhinoceros seems to be covered with a cloak made for it. This cloak has, indeed, been compared to a suit of armor of well adjusted pieces. The hide is, however, so thick and hard that, without these creases or folds, the animal, imprisoned, as it were, in its armor could scarcely move. It is of a dark color, nearly bare, generally provided only with a few coarse and stiff hairs on the tail and ears, occasionally with curly woolly hairs on certain parts of the body.

The great Indian rhinoceros is heavy and more massive than even the elephant, on account of the shortness of its limbs. The feet have each three toes, of which one sees nothing but the hoof which covers them. The tail is short and thin. This huge creature lives alone in the forests and near rivers and marshes, because it is fond of wallowing in the mud, like the wild boar, which it sometimes resembles in its habits. Though such a powerful animal, it rarely attacks before it is interfered with; the other large animals fear it, and consequently leave it unmolested. Its horn only serves it for moving branches out of its way and for clearing a road for itself in the thickets, in the midst of which it passes its taciturn existence. Some naturalists have said that it uses its tusks for tearing up the roots on which it is fond of feeding; but in order to turn up the soil, the animal, from the position of its horn and from the horn being curved backwards, would be obliged to assume an attitude which the shortness of its neck and its general conformation render impossible. A wounded rhinoceros of this species has been seen to cut the reeds on either side of it as perfectly as if done with the sharpest incisive instrument.

An Untameable Beast.

Its principal food consists of roots, of succulent plants, and of small branches of trees, which it tears off, seizes, and breaks with its upper lip, which is elongated and movable, and which it uses with great adroitness, almost in the same way in which the elephant uses its trunk. When it is kept in a state of captivity it eats bread, rice, bran soaked in water, hay, and carrots. Its clumsy shape, its short legs, its belly almost touching the ground, render this animal very ugly and ill-favored. Its diminutive

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