 Reference Base  The mammals of South Africa, vol I: Primates, carnivora a... |
|
Sclater, W.L., 1900. The mammals of South Africa, vol I: Primates, carnivora and ungulata. London, R.H. Porter, pp. i-xxxi, 1-324
|
|
|
|
| |
| Location: |
Africa - Southern Africa - South Africa |
| Subject: |
Distribution - Records |
| Species: |
Black Rhino |
 |
|
LITERATURE.- Tachard (1686) p. 90, account of, with illustration;
Kolben (1731), ii, p. 101, a recognisable description of the black rhinoceros;
Camper, Act. Petrop. for 1777, pt. 2 (1780), p. l93, pls, v-viii, description of skull sent to author by Governor Baron van Plettenberg;
Sparrman in Swedish Academy Transactions (1778), p. 307, gives a description of individuals met with by him;
Buffon (1782), Suppl.vi, p. 78, pl. vi, account copied from Allamand;
Sparrman (1795), ii, pp. 97, 104, pl. iii, account of specimen obtained by him at Commadagga, in Somerset East;
Lichtenstein (1812), i, pp. 98, 344, met with rhinoceros in Calvinia and on the little Fish River in 1803-4;
Burchell (1824), ii, p. 72, met two in Britstown and gives notes on their habits;
Steedman (1835), i, p 69, mentions the occurrence of a specimen on the Great Fish River about 1826;
Harris (1838), pp. 84, 103, 158, 278, 376, killed many in Bechuanland, western Transvaal and Orange Free State; Harris (1840), figured on pl. xvi;
Methuen (1848), p.138, 163, account of the two species and their habits;
Cumming (1855), i,p. 249, met his first rhinoceros at the head waters of the Marico river in western Transvaal;
Andersson (1856), p. 385, account of two species with distribution and habits;
Livingstone (1857), p. 56, notes that they are always found near water;
Hall (1857), p. 7, on habits, distribution and distinction;
Grout (1863), p. 295, gives the Zulu name;
Drummond (1875), p. 72, devotes a chapter to the shooting and natural history;
Theal (1888), i, p. 65, records the presence of rhinoceroses close to Cape Town in van Riebeek's time [1653], p. 291, gives an account of the upsetting of Simon van der Stel's coach near Piquetberg in 1685, by an individual;
Bryden (1889), p. 286, discusses their extinction in Cape Colony;
Nicolls and Eglington (1892), p. 62, pl. x. fig. 35, description and habits;
Bryden (1893), p. 489, past and present distribution;
Lydekker (1893), p. 386, description and figure;
Selous (1893), p. 455, measurements of an individual shot near the Chobe River;
Oswell and Jackson (1894), pp. 43, and 251 in Badminton Big Game Shooting, reminiscences of shooting;
Kirby (1896), p. 550, native names and distribution in Eastern Transvaal;
Ward (1896), p. 284, horn measurements;
Kirby (1899), p. 337, distribution in the Beira-Zambesi district and notes on habits;
Kirby (1899a), p. 35, range and habits in South Africa.
This species became known at the time of the first settlement at the Cape in 1653 ; it is frequently mentioned in van Riebeek's diary, and apparently at that time, was common enough on the slopes of Table Mountain and on the Cape Flats; a further incident corroborating this is, that the coach in which Simon van der Stel, the Governor, was proceeding northwards, on a journey to Namaqualand in 1685, was upset in the neighbourhood of Piquetberg, by the charge of a rhinoceros, and the Governor himself had a narrow escape. Tachard, who spent ome few weeks at the Cape at the same time (1685), and Kolben who wrote about fifty years later, both caricature the rhinoceros shamefully in their representations, but the latter gives a very [306] amusing description of the animal, in which many fables are mingled with truth; finally, the rhinoceros emerges from myth through the observations of Colonel Gordon transmitted to Allamand, and of Sparrman whose researches were made on a freshly killed individual in what is now the Somerset East division of the Colony.
|
|
|
File available
details
Original text on this topic: