Pennant, T., 1781. History of quadrupeds, second edition. London, B.White, vol. 1, pp. i-xxiv, 1-564
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XI. RHINOCEROS. With one, sometimes two, large horns on the nose. Each hoof cloven in three parts.
66. Two-Horned.
Rhinoceros cornu gemino. Martial spectac.ep.22. Ph.Tr.Abr. ix. 100. xi. 910. Ph.Tr. vol. lvi. 32. tab.ii.
Kolben, ii, 101.
Sparman, Stock.wettsk.Handl. 1778, p.103.
Flacourt, hist.Madag. 395. De Buffon, xi. 186. Lobo Abiss. 230
Rhinoceros bicornis, Linn. Syst. 104. Br. Mus. Lev. Mus.
Rh. with two horns, one placed beyond the other. Nose and upper lip like the former. No foreteeth. The skin without any plicae or folds; much granulated or warty; of a deep cinereous grey. Between the legs smooth, and flesh-colored. In other parts are a few scattered stiff bristles, most numerous about the ears and end of the tail. Tail thick as a thumb; convex above and below: flatted on the sides. Feet no more in diameter than the legs: but the three hoofs project forward. Soles callous.
Place] Inhabits Africa. Observed first by Flacourt, in the Bay of Saldagne, near the Cape. Within these few years by Mr. Sparman, a learned Swede, at some distance N. of that promontory. He, with the laudable perseverance of a naturalist, watched the arrival of those and other animals at a muddy water, whither the wild beasts resort to quench their thirst, and some to indulge, in that hot climate, in rolling in the mud. In that spot he shot two of these animals: one was so large that the united force of five men could not turn it. The lesser he measured: its length
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was eleven feet and a half, the girth twelve: the height, between six and seven.
Manners] This species seems to agree in manners with the following. Its flesh is eatable, and tastes like coarse pork. Cups are made of the horns; and of the hide, whips. Its food is boughs of trees, which it bites into bits of the size of a finger. It feeds also much on succulent plants, especially the stinking Stapelia.
It continues during the day in a state of rest. In the evenings and mornings (perhaps the whole night) wanders in quest of food: or in search of places to roll in.
Has no voice, only a sort of snorting, which was observed in females, anxious for their young.
Its dung is like that of horses. It has a great propensity to cleanliness, dropping its dung and urine always in particular places.
Its sense of sight is bad. Those of hearing and smelling very exquisite: the lest noise or scent
Pennant 1781, p.2
puts it in motion. It instantly turns to the spot from which those two senses take the alarm. Whatsoever it meets with in its course, it overturns and tramples on. Men, oxen, and waggons, have thus been overturned, and sometimes destroyed. It never returns to repeat the charge; but keeps on its way: so that a senseless impulse, more than rage, seems the cause of the mischief it does.
This was the species described by Martial, under the name of Rhinoceros cornu gemino: who relates its combat with the bear:
Namque gravem gemino cornu sic extulit ursum
Jactat ut impositas taurus in astra pilas. (* Spect. Epig. 22)
In fact, the Romans procured their Rhinoceroses from Africa only,
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which was the reason why they are represented with double horns. That figured in the Prenestine pavement, and that on a coin of Domitian, have two horns: that which Pausanias (ix.9) describes under the name of Aethiopian Bull had one horn on the nose, and another lesser higher up: and Cosmas Aegyptius (Tom.ii. 334), who traveled into Aethiopia, in the reign of Justinian, also attributes to it this same number: whereas Pliny, who describes the Indian kind, justly gives it but a single horn. Cosmas says that its skin was so thick and hard, that the Aethiopians ploughed with it, and that they called the animal Aru and Harisi: the last signifying the figure of the nostrils, and the use made of the skin. He adds, that when the beast is quiescent, the horns are loose, but in its rage become firm and immoveable.
Augustus introduced a rhinoceros (probably of this kind) into the shews, on accasion of his triumph over Cleopatra (Dion Cassius, lib.li).
67. One-Horned.
Rhinoceros. Plinii lib.viii c.20. Gesner quad. 842. Raii syn.quad. 122. Klein quad. 26. Grew's Museum, 29. Worm, Mus. 336. De Buffon, xi. 174. tab.vii. Brisson quad. 78. Ph.Tr. Abr. ix. 93. Schreber ii. 44. tab. lxxviii.
Rhinoceros or Abbados. Linschotta Itin.. 56. Bontius India 50. Borri hist. Cochin-China. 797. Du Halde China i. 120. Faunul. Sinens.
Rhinoceros unicornis. Lin.syst. 104 Edw. 221. Br.Mus. Ashm. Mus. Lev.Mus.
Rh. with a single horn, placed near the end of the nose, sometimes three and a half feet long, black and smooth: the upper lip long, hangs over the lower, ends in a point; is very pliable, and serves to collect its food, and deliver it into the mouth: the nostrils placed transversely: four cutting teeth; one
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on each corner of each jaw. Six grinders in each; the first remote from the cutting teeth. The ears large, erect, pointed; eyes small and dull: the skin naked, rough, or tuberculated, lying about the neck in vast folds; there is another fold from the shoulders to the fore-legs; another from the hind part of the back to the thighs: the skin is so thick as to turn the edge of a scimetar, and resist a musket-ball: tail slender, flatted at the end, and covered on the sides with very stiff thick black hairs, the belly hangs low: the legs short, strong, and thick: the hoofs divided into three parts; each pointing forward.
Those which have been brought to Europe have been young and small: Bontius says, that in respect to bulk of body, they equal the elephant, but are lower on account of the shortness of the legs.
Inhabits Bengal, Siam, Cochin-China, Quangsi in China, and the isles of Java and Sumatra;
Pennant 1781, p.3
loves shady forests, the neighbourhood of rivers, and marshy places: fond of wallowing in mire, like the hog; is said by that means to give shelter in the folds of its skin to scorpions, centipes, and other insects. Is a solitary animal: brings one young at a time, very solicitous about it: quiet and inoffensive; but when provoked, furious: very swift, and very dangerous: I know a gentleman (Charles Pigot, Esq. of Peploe, Shropshire, at that time in the India service) who had his belly ripped up by one, but survived the wound. Is dull of sight; but has a most exquisite scent: feeds on vegetables, particularly shrubs, broom and thistles: grunts like a hog: is said to consort with the tiger; a fable, founded on their common attachment to the sides of rivers, and on that account are sometimes found near each other.
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It is said, when it has flung down a man, to lick the flesh quite from the bone with its tongue: this is impossible, as the tongue is quite smooth; that which wounded the gentleman, retired instantly after the stroke.
Its flesh is eaten; the skin, the flesh, hoofs, teeth, and very dung, used in India medicinally; the horn is in great repute as an antidote against poison (it was not every horn that had this virtue: some were held very cheap, while others take a vast price), especially that of a virgin Abbada; cups are made of them, which are supposed to communicate the virtue to the liquor poured into them.
The Unicorn] Is the unicorn of Holy Writ, and Indian ass of Aristotle (Hist.An.lib.ii c.1), who says, it has but one horn; his informers might well compare the clumsy shape of the rhinoceros to that of an ass, so that the philosopher might easily be induced to pronounce it a whole-footed animal. I may add, that Aelian, lib. iv. c.22, attributes the same alexipharmic qualities to the horn of the Indian ass, as are ascribed to that of the Rhinoceros. This was also the fera monoceros of Pliny (Lib.viii c.21); which was of India, the same country with this animal; and in his account of the monoceros, he exactly describes the great black horn and the hog-like tail. The unicorn of Holy Writ has all the properties of the Rhinoceros, rage, untameableness, great swiftness, and great strength.
Various animals were styled monoceros and unicornis, probably from the accident of having lost one of their horns. Thus Pliny mentions a bos unicornis and oryx unicorne. Any of the great strait-horned antelopes, such as the Indian, No.22, deprived of one horn,
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would make an excellent unicorn, and answer to the figure given of it: for on such an accident the fable seems to be founded, when the word is not applied to the Rhinoceros.
The combats between the Elephant and Rhinoceros, a fable derived from Pliny.
An entire Rhinoceros was found buried in a bank of a Siberian river, in the antient frozen soil, with the skin, tendons, and some of the flesh in the highest preservation. This fact, incredible as it is at first sight, is given, not only on the best authority (Dr. Pallas, Nov.Com.Petrop. xvii. 585. tab.xv): but as an evidence, the complete head is now preserved in the Museum at Petersburg: the body was discovered in 1772, in the sandy banks of the Witim, a river falling into the Lena, below Jakutsk, in N. lat. 64, and a most ample account of it given by that able naturalist Doctor Pallas, to whom this work is under frequent obligations.
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History of quadrupeds, second edition
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