 Reference Base  The game animals of India, Burma, and Tibet, being a new ... |
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Lydekker, R., 1907. The game animals of India, Burma, and Tibet, being a new and revised edition of 'The great and small game of India, Burma, and Tibet'. London, Rowland Ward, pp. i-xv, 1-409
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World |
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Behaviour - Towards Man |
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Indian Rhino |
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When driven into the open, the animal will often stand for a few minutes, shaking its ears, before it makes up its mind in which direction to flee. A calf and its mother always issue forth together, but the old bulls and cows keep mostly apart, although both may have their home in the same patch of jungle. Those who have seen an Indian rhinoceros careering round its enclosure in the Zoological Gardens after a mud-bath, with its heavy, lumbering gallop, will not fail to realize that a charge from such a monster must be a serious matter. Fortunately, in spite of stories to the contrary, the creature in its wild state appears to be of a mild and harmless disposition, seeking rather to escape from its enemies by flight than to rout them by attack. When badly wounded, or so hustled about by elephants and beaters as to become bewildered, a rhinoceros will, however, occasionally charge home. In such onslaughts it is the common belief that the animal, like its African cousins, uses its horn as its weapon of offence; but this is an error; the real weapons being the triangular, sharp-pointed lower tusks. With these a sweeping cut can be made in the leg of an elephant, in much the same way as a boar rips up a horse. Probably all the Asiatic members of the group attack in the same fashion.
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