Kitabı oku: «Natural History of the Mammalia of India and Ceylon», sayfa 29

Until I read the above I, from my limited experience, had come to the conclusion that elephant mothers are very fussy and jealous of other females. (See Appendix C.)

I have only once seen an elephant born in captivity, and that was in 1859, when I was in charge of the Sasseram Levy on the Grand Trunk road. Not far from the lines of my men was an elephant camp; they were mostly Burmese animals, and many of them died; but one little fellow made his appearance one fine morning, and was an object of great interest to us all. On one occasion, some years after, I went out after a tiger on a female elephant which had a very young calf. I repented it after a while, for I lost my tiger and my temper, and very nearly my life. Those who have read 'Seonee,' may remember the ludicrous scene in which I made the doctor figure as the hero. An elephant is full grown at twenty-five, though not in his prime till some years after. Forty years is what mahouts, I think, consider age, but the best elephants live up to one hundred years or even more.²⁹

A propos of my remarks, in the introductory portion of this paper on Proboscidea, regarding the probable gradual extinction of the African elephant, the following reassuring paragraphs from the lecture I have so extensively quoted will prove interesting and satisfactory. Mr. Sanderson has previously alluded to the common belief, strengthened by actual facts in Ceylon, that the elephant was gradually being exterminated in India; but this is not the case, especially since the laws for their protection have come into force: "The elephant-catching records of the past fifty years attest the fact that there is no diminution in the numbers now obtainable in Bengal, whilst in Southern India elephants have become so numerous of late years that they are annually appearing where they had never been heard of before."

He then instances the Billigarungun hills, an isolated range of three hundred square miles on the borders of Mysore, where wild elephants first made their appearance about eighty years ago, the country having relapsed from cultivation into a wilderness owing to the decimation of the inhabitants by three successive visitations of small-pox. He adds: "The strict preservation of wild elephants seems only advantageous or desirable in conjunction with corresponding measures for keeping their numbers within bounds by capture. It is to be presumed that elephants are preserved with a view to their utilisation. With its jungles filled with elephants, the anomalous state of things by which Government, when obliged to go into the market, finds them barely procurable, and then only at prices double those of twenty, and quadruple those of forty years ago, will I trust be considered worthy of inquiry. Whilst it is necessary to maintain stringent restrictions on the wasteful and cruel native modes of hunting, it will I believe be found advantageous to allow lessees every facility for hunting under conditions that shall insure humane management of their captives. I believe that the price of elephants might be reduced one-half in a year or two by such measures. The most ordinary elephant cannot be bought at present for less than Rs. 2,000. Unless something be done, it is certain that the rifle will have to be called into requisition to protect the ryots of tracts bordering upon elephant jungles. To give an idea of the numbers of wild elephants in some parts of India, I may say that during the past three years 503 elephants have been captured by the Dacca kheddah establishment, in a tract of country forty miles long by twenty broad, in the Garo hills, whilst not less than one thousand more were met with during the hunting operations. Of course these elephants do not confine themselves to that tract alone, but wander into other parts of the hills. There are immense tracts of country in India similarly well stocked with wild elephants.

"I am sure it will be regarded as a matter for hearty congratulation by all who are interested in so fine and harmless an animal as is the elephant that there is no danger of its becoming extinct in India. Though small portions of its haunts have been cleared for tea or coffee cultivation, the present forest area of this country will probably never be practically reduced, for reasons connected with the timber supply and climate of the country; and as long as its haunts remain the elephant must flourish under due regulations for its protection."

Elephants are caught in various ways. The pitfall is now prohibited, so also is the Assam plan of inclosing a herd in a salt lick. Noosing and driving into a kheddah or inclosure are now the only legitimate means of capture. The process is too long for description here, but I may conclude this article, which owes so much to Mr. Sanderson's careful observations, with the following interesting account of the mode in which the newly-caught elephant is taught to obey:—

"New elephants are trained as follows: they are first tied between two trees, and are rubbed down by a number of men with long bamboos, to an accompaniment of the most extravagant eulogies of the animal, sung and shouted at it at the top of their voices. The animal of course lashes out furiously at first; but in a few days it ceases to act on the offensive, or, as the native say, 'shurum lugta hai'—'it becomes ashamed of itself,' and it then stands with its trunk curled, shrinking from the men. Ropes are now tied round its body, and it is mounted at its picket for several days. It is then taken out for exercise, secured between two tame elephants. The ropes still remain round its body to enable the mahout to hold on should the elephant try to shake him off. A man precedes it with a spear to teach it to halt when ordered to do so; whilst, as the tame elephants wheel to the right or left, the mahout presses its neck with his knees, and taps it on the head with a small stick, to train it to turn in the required direction. To teach an elephant to kneel it is taken into water about five feet deep when the sun is hot, and, upon being pricked on the back with a pointed stick it soon lies down, partly to avoid the pain, partly from inclination for a bath. By taking it into shallower water daily, it is soon taught to kneel even on land.

"Elephants are taught to pick up anything from the ground by a rope, with a piece of wood attached, being dangled over their foreheads, near to the ground. The wood strikes against their trunk and fore-feet, and to avoid the discomfort the elephant soon takes it in its trunk, and carries it. It eventually learns to do this without a rope being attached to the object."

Sir Emerson Tennent's account of the practice in Ceylon is similar.

As regards the size of elephants few people agree. The controversy is as strong on this point as on the maximum size of tigers. I quite believe few elephants attain to or exceed ten feet, still there are one or two recorded instances, the most trustworthy of which is Mr. Sanderson's measurement of the Sirmoor Rajah's elephant, which is 10 ft. 7½ in. at the shoulder—a truly enormous animal. I have heard of a tusker at Hyderabad that is over eleven feet, but we must hold this open to doubt till an accurate measurement, for which I have applied, is received. Elephants should be measured like a horse, with a standard and cross bar, and not by means of a piece of string over the rounded muscles of the shoulder. Kellaart, usually a most accurate observer, mentions in his 'Prodromus Faunæ Zeylanicæ' his having measured a Ceylon elephant nearly twelve feet high, but does not say how it was done. Sir Joseph Fayrer has a photograph of an enormous elephant belonging to the late Sir Jung Bahadur, a perfect mountain of flesh.

We in India have nothing to do with the next order, HYRACOIDEA or Conies, which are small animals, somewhat resembling short-eared rabbits, but which from their dentition and skeleton are allied to the rhinoceros and tapir. The Syrian coney is frequently mentioned in the Old Testament, and was one of the animals prohibited for food to the Jews, "because he cheweth the cud and divideth not the hoof." The chewing of the cud was a mistake, for the coney does not do so, but it has a way of moving its jaws which might lead to the idea that it ruminates. In other parts of Scripture the habits of the animal are more accurately depicted—"The rocks are a refuge for the conies;" and again: "The conies are but a feeble folk, yet make they their houses in the rocks." Solomon says in the Proverbs: "There be four things which are little upon the earth, but they are exceeding wise." These are the ants, for they prepare their meat in summer, as we see here in India the stores laid up by the large black ant (Atta providens); the conies for the reason above given; the locusts, which have no king, yet go forth by bands; and the spider, which maketh her home in kings' palaces.

ORDER UNGULATA

These are animals which possess hoofs; and are divided into two sub-orders—those that have an odd number of toes on the hind-foot, such as the horse, tapir, and rhinoceros, being termed the PERISSODACTYLA; and the others, with an even number of toes, such as the pig, sheep, ox, deer, &c., the ARTIODACTYLA; both words being taken from the Greek perissos and artios, uneven or overmuch, and even; and daktulos, a finger or toe. We begin with the uneven-toed group.

SUB-ORDER PERISSODACTYLA

This consists of three living and two extinct families—the living ones being horses, tapirs, and rhinoceroses, and the extinct the Paleotheridæ and the Macrauchenidæ. I quote from Professor Boyd Dawkins and Mr. H. W. Oakley the following brief yet clear description of the characteristics of this sub-order:—

"In all the animals belonging to the group the number of dorso-lumbar vertebræ is not fewer than twenty-two; the third or middle digit of each foot is symmetrical; the femur or thigh-bone has a third trochanter, or knob of bone, on the outer side; and the two facets on the front of the astragalus or ankle-bone are very unequal. When the head is provided with horns they are skin deep only, without a core of bone, and they are always placed in the middle line of the skull, as in the rhinoceros.

"In the Perissodactyla the number of toes is reduced to a minimum. Supposing, for example, we compare the foot of a horse with one of our own hands, we shall see that those parts which correspond with the thumb and little finger are altogether absent, while that which corresponds with the middle finger is largely developed, and with its hoof, the equivalent to our nail, constitutes the whole foot. The small splint bones, however, resting behind the principal bone of the foot represent those portions (metacarpals) of the second and third digits which extend from the wrist to the fingers properly so-called, and are to be viewed as traces of a foot composed of three toes in an ancestral form of the horse, which we shall discuss presently. In the tapir the hind foot is composed of three well-developed toes, corresponding to the first three toes in man, and in the rhinoceros both feet are provided with three toes, formed of the same three digits. In the extinct Paleotherium also the foot is constituted very much as in the rhinoceros."

FAMILY EQUIDÆ—THE HORSE

This family consists of the true horses and the asses, which latter also include the zebra and quagga. Apart from the decided external differences between the horse and ass, they have one marked divergence, viz. that the horse has corns or callosities on the inner side of both fore and hind limbs, whilst the asses have them only on the fore limbs; but this is a very trifling difference, and how closely the two animals are allied is proved by the facility with which they interbreed. It is, therefore, proper to include them both in one genus, although Dr. Gray has made a separation, calling the latter Asinus, and Hamilton Smith proposed Hippotigris as a generic name for the zebras.

We have no wild horse in India; in fact there are no truly wild horses in the world as far as we know. The tarpan or wild horse of Tartary, and the mustang of South America, though de facto wild horses, are supposed to be descended from domesticated forms. In Australia too horses sometimes grow wild from being left long in the bush. These are known as brumbies, and are generally shot by the stock farmer, as they are of deteriorated quality, and by enticing away his mares spoil his more carefully selected breeds. According to Mr. Anthony Trollope they are marvels of ugliness.

The Indian species of this genus are properly asses; there are two kinds, although it has been asserted by many—and some of them good naturalists, such as Blyth—that the Kiang of Thibet and the Ghor-khur of Sind and Baluchistan are the same animal.

GENUS EQUUS

Incisors, 6/6; canines, 1—1/1—1; molars, 6—6/6—6; these last are complex, with square crowns marked by wavy folds of enamel. The incisors are grooved, and are composed of folds of enamel and cement, aptly described by Professor Boyd Dawkins and Mr. Oakley as being folded in from the top, after the manner of the finger of a glove the top of which has been pulled in. The marks left by the attrition of the surface give an approximate idea of the age of the animal. The stomach is simple—the intestinal canal very long and cæcum enormous.

NO. 426. EQUUS ONAGER

The Wild Ass of Kutch (Jerdon's No. 214)

NATIVE NAMES.—Ghor-khur, Hindi; Ghour, or Kherdecht, Persian; Koulan of the Kirghiz.

HABITAT.—Sind, Baluchistan, Persia.

DESCRIPTION.—Pale sandy colour above, with a slight rufescent tinge; muzzle, breast, lower parts and inside of limbs white; a dark chocolate brown dorsal stripe from mane to tail, with a cross on the shoulder, sometimes a double one; and the legs are also occasionally barred. The mane and tail-tuft are dark brown or black; a narrow dark band over the hoof; ears longish, white inside, concolorous with the body outside, the tip and outer border blackish; head heavy; neck short; croup higher than the withers.

SIZE.—Height about 11 to 12 hands.

The following account I extract from Jerdon's 'Mammals of India,' p. 238, which epitomises much of what has been written on the subject:—

"The ghor-khur is found sparingly in Cutch, Guzerat, Jeysulmeer and Bikaneer, not being found further south, it is said, than Deesa, or east of 75° east longitude. It also occurs in Sind, and more abundantly west of the Indus river, in Baluchistan, extending into Persia and Turkestan, as far north as north latitude 48°. It appears that the Bikaneer herd consists at most of about 150 individuals, which frequent an oasis a little elevated above the surrounding desert, and commanding an extensive view around. A writer in the Indian Sporting Review, writing of this species as it occurs in the Pât, a desert country between Asnee and the hills west of the Indus, above Mithunkote, says: 'They are to be found wandering pretty well throughout the year; but in the early summer, when the grass and the water in the pools have dried up from the hot winds (which are here terrific), the greater number, if not all, of the ghor-khurs migrate to the hills for grass and water. The foaling season is in June, July, and August, when the Beluchis ride down and catch numbers of foals, finding a ready sale in the cantonments for them, as they are taken down on speculation to Hindustan. They also shoot great numbers of full-grown ones for food, the ground in places in the desert being very favourable for stalking.' In Bikaneer too, according to information given by Major Tytler to Mr. Blyth: 'Once only in the year, when the foals are young, a party of five or six native hunters, mounted on hardy Sindh mares, chase down as many foals as they succeed in tiring, which lie down when utterly fatigued, and suffer themselves to be bound and carried off. In general they refuse sustenance at first, and about one-third only of those taken are reared; but these command high prices, and find a ready sale with the native princes. The profits are shared by the party, who do not attempt a second chase in the same year, lest they should scare the herd from the district, as these men regard the sale of a few ghor-khurs annually as a regular source of subsistence.'

"This wild ass is very shy and difficult to approach, and has great speed. A full-grown one has, however, been run down fairly and speared more than once."

I remember we had a pair of these asses in the Zoological Gardens at Lahore in 1868; they were to a certain extent tame, but very skittish, and would whinny and kick on being approached. I never heard of their being mounted.

It is closely allied to, if not identical with, the wild ass of Assyria (Equus hemippus). The Hon. Charles Murray, who presented one of the pair in the London Zoological Gardens in 1862, wrote the following account of it to Dr. Sclater: "The ghour or kherdecht of the Persians is doubtless the onager of the ancients. Your specimen was caught when a foal on the range of mountains which stretch from Kermanshah on the west in a south-easterly direction to Shiraz; these are inhabited by several wild and half-independent tribes, the most powerful of which are the Buchtzari. The ghour is a remarkably fleet animal, and moreover so shy and enduring that he can rarely be overtaken by the best mounted horsemen in Persia. For this reason they chase them now, as they did in the time of Xenophon, by placing relays of horsemen at intervals of eight or ten miles. These relays take up the chase successively and tire down the ghour. The flesh of the ghour is esteemed a great delicacy, not being held unclean by the Moslem, as it was in the Mosaic code. I do not know whether this species is ever known to bray like the ordinary domestic ass. Your animal, whilst under my care, used to emit short squeaks and sometimes snorts not unlike those of a deer, but she was so young at the time that her voice may not have acquired its mature intonation."

NO. 427. EQUUS HEMIONUS

The Kiang or Wild Ass of Thibet

NATIVE NAMES.—Kiang or Dizightai, Thibetan.

HABITAT.—Thibet and Central Asia; Ladakh.

DESCRIPTION.—Darker in hue than the ghor-khur, especially on the flanks, contrasting abruptly with the white of the under-parts. It has the dark line along the back, but not the cross band on the shoulder; ears shorter.

SIZE.—About 12 to 14 hands in height.

From its larger size, shorter ears, and its shrill bray, which has been mistaken for a neigh, this animal has at times been taken for a horse, and described as such. The kiang, of which there is a living specimen in the London Zoological Gardens, inhabits the high plateaux of Thibet, ranging up to fifteen and sixteen thousand feet above the sea level. It is very swift and wary.

The late Brigadier-General McMaster, in his 'Notes on Jerdon,' page 248, says: "An excellent sportsman and very close observer, who, being a cavalry officer, should be able to give a sound opinion on the matter, assured me that the voice of the wild horse of the snowy Himalayas is 'an unmistakeable neigh, not a bray,' and that he certainly looked on them as horses. He had seen several of these animals, and killed one." Captain (now General) R. Strachey wrote of it: "My impression as to the voice of the kyang is that it is a shrieking bray and not a neigh;" and again: "the kyang, so far as external aspect is concerned, is obviously an ass and not an horse." Of this there is but little doubt. Moorcroft, in his travels, vol. i. p. 312, states: "In the eastern parts of Ladakh is a nondescript wild variety of horse which I may call Equus kiang. It is perhaps more of an ass than a horse, but its ears are shorter, and it is certainly not the gur-khor or wild ass of Sind." Further on, at page 442, he-adds: "We saw many herds of the kyang, and I made numerous attempts to bring one down, but with invariably bad success. Some were wounded, but not sufficiently to check their speed, and they quickly bounded up the rocks, where it was impossible to follow. They would afford excellent sport to four or five men well mounted, but a single individual has no chance. The kyang allows his pursuer to approach no nearer than five or six hundred yards; he then trots off, turns, looks and waits till you are almost within distance, when he is off again. If fired at he is frightened, and scampers off altogether. The Chanthan people sometimes catch them by snares—sometimes shoot them. From all I have seen of the animal I should pronounce him to be neither a horse nor an ass. His shape is as much like that of the one as the other, but his cry is more like braying than neighing. The prevailing colour is a light reddish-chestnut, but the nose, the under-part of the jaw and neck, the belly and the legs are white, the mane is dun and erect, the ears are moderately long, the tail bare and reaching a little below the hock. The height is about fourteen hands. The form, from the fore to the hind leg and feet to a level with the back is more square than that of an ass. His back is less straight, and there is a dip behind the withers and a rounding of the crupper which is more like the shape of the horse; his neck also is more erect and arched than that of the ass. He is perhaps more allied to the quagga, but without stripes, except a reported one along each side of the back to the tail. These were seen distinctly in a foal, but were not distinguished in the adults."

FAMILY TAPIRIDÆ—THE TAPIRS

These are somewhat hog-like animals, with elongated snouts, possessing four toes on their fore-feet, and three on the hinder ones. They live in dense forests, are nocturnal in habit, and live exclusively on a vegetable diet. The Indian tapir has a more powerful and extensile trunk than the American, and its skull shows in consequence a greater space for the attachment of the muscles. The dentition is as follows:—Inc., 3—3/3—3; can., 1—1/1—1; premolars, 4—4/4—4; molars, 3—3/3—3. The outer incisors somewhat resemble canines, whilst the others are very small. The canines themselves are not large.

The tapir is not found in India proper, but the Malayan species is occasionally to be come across in Burmah, having been killed in Tenasserim.

GENUS TAPIRUS

NO. 428. TAPIRUS MALAYANUS

The Malay Tapir

NATIVE NAMES.—Ta-ra-shu, Burmese; Kuda-ayer, Malayan; Sala-dang of the Limuns in Sumatra; Gindol of the Mannas in Sumatra; Babi-alu in Bencoolen; Tennu in Malacca.

HABITAT.—Tenasserim provinces, as high as the fifteenth degree north latitude; Lower Siam; the Malayan peninsula; Sumatra and Borneo.

DESCRIPTION.—General colour glossy black, but with the back, rump, and sides of the belly white. The young are beautifully variegated, being striped and spotted with yellow fawn on the upper parts of the body, and with white below.

Mr. Mason writes: "Though seen so rarely, the tapir is by no means uncommon in the interior of the Tavoy and Mergui provinces. I have frequently come upon its recent footmarks, but it avoids the inhabited parts of the country. It has never been heard of north of the valley of the Tavoy river."

The tapir is naturally all the world over a very shy, retiring animal, but it is capable of being tamed when taken young, and of showing great attachment.

FAMILY RHINOCEROTIDÆ

"The skeleton of the rhinoceros viewed generally has a resemblance to that of the little hyrax, the tapir, and the horse. The skull is very much elevated at the base, being somewhat of a pyramidal form, and the nasal bones curve upwards and downwards, and are of such a size and thickness, in order to support one or more immense horns, that they are quite unparalleled for their development in any other existing quadruped. The nasal bones, together with the premaxillary and maxillary bones, form the general contour for the external apertures of the nostrils. This is peculiar, and found in no other animal with the exception of the tapir."—Prof. W. Boyd Dawkins and Mr. Oakley.

The external appearance of this animal is familiar to most—a large ungainly creature, with a long head, a massive horn on its nose, sometimes two horns; a round unwieldly body covered with an immensely thick hide arranged in heavy folds; short tail and short legs, with three toes covered with broad nails or hoofs.

The stomach is simple; the intestines about eight times the length of the body, and the cæcum is large and sacculated. The horn is a mere agglutinated mass of hair or fibre superimposed on the skin, and has no bony core. The females have two inguinal mammæ.

The dentition is peculiar; "the grinders are implanted by distinct roots, and in the upper jaw their crowns are traversed by two deep folds of enamel which constitute open valleys. In the lower jaw they are composed of two crescent-shaped lobes, also open. The covering of cement is thin, and never fills up the valleys, as in the case of the more complex dental system in the horse. The normal number of grinders is seven in each jaw, while the incisors, as we have already remarked, vary not only in form but also are sometimes absent, and canines are not developed in any of the living or fossil members of the family."—Boyd Dawkins and Oakley.

The Rhinocerotidæ are divided into two groups—the Asiatic and the African; and the former consist of two genera—RHINOCEROS and CERATORHINUS, the former with one and the latter with two horns.

It is a moot point whether the rhinoceros is or is not the unicorn of Scripture, though it is by no means clear that the animal in question was a one-horned creature, but according to some might have been the great wild ox or urus of Macedonia. An Indian single-horned rhinoceros was sent from India to the king of Portugal in 1513, and from it various most distorted pictures were disseminated throughout Europe. It was represented as covered with a wondrous suit of armour beautifully decorated, and with a second horn on its shoulders!

The first one brought alive to England was in 1685. Parsons describes and figures one brought to Europe in 1739, and another in 1741 ('Philosophical Transactions,' xlii.).

The Asiatic rhinoceroses differ from the African in having the skin divided into shields by well-marked folds, long upper cutting teeth, the African having none, and by the produced conical nasal bones of the skull instead of broad and rounded ones. There are one or two other minor yet well-marked differences which we need not mention here.

GENUS RHINOCEROS

"The skin divided into shields by well-marked folds, lumbar and neck-folds well developed; horn single, anterior; part of occipital bone near the occipital condyle and the condyles themselves prominent."—Gray.

There are two species in India, viz. Rhinoceros Indicus and R. Sondaicus, the latter being the Javan species.

For the following description of the former I have to thank Mr. J. Cockburn, who, with most unselfish kindness, kept back the article he was about to publish, and gave it to me to incorporate in this work. The following remarks on dentition are also his:³⁰—

"The normal dentition of R. Indicus is: Inc., 1—1/2—2; premolars, 4—4/4—4; molars, 3—3/3—3; but the dentition varies to a great extent; for example, in a specimen of R. Sondaicus it stood: Inc., 1—1/2—2; molars, 6—7/6—6. The first premolar in both Indicus and Sondaicus is a deciduous tooth, which is not usually replaced, and gradually drops out with age, but it may be retained till extreme old age. In the majority of cases it is either lost or worn down before the last molar is in wear. The incisors also vary greatly in the adult animal; they are 1—1/2—2, the outer pair below being the formidable dagger-shaped tushes, with which they inflict the terrible gashes they can produce. The median pair lower are usually lost or absorbed by advancing age, having no functions, and the incisive tusks themselves are subject to very rapid wear, being often worn down before the animal has reached middle age. Occasionally R. Indicus has six incisors in the lower jaw (the normal number in other mammalia), and four in the upper, but this is very exceptional."—J. Cockburn, MS.

NO. 429. RHINOCEROS INDICUS

(Jerdon's No. 212)

NATIVE NAMES.—Genda, Gonda, Ganda, or Genra, Hindi; Gor, Assamese.

HABITAT.—Himalayan Terai, from Central Nepal to the extreme eastern corner of the valley of Assam.

"About three centuries ago this animal existed on the banks of the Indus. The Indian rhinoceros inhabits by preference heavy grass jungle, rarely entering forest. In this respect it differs from its ally Sondaicus, which is a forest-loving species, and even frequents mountainous countries. It is still numerous in the mighty grass jungles which extend along the foot of the Eastern Himalayas from their slopes to the banks of the Brahmaputra. It is yearly becoming more scarce in the Nepal Terai, but is found there from Rohilkund to the Bhootan Doars."

DESCRIPTION.—The accompanying outline sketch, taken from Nature for April 1874, will give a better idea of the animal than a mere verbal description:—

"For convenience of description I will divide the body into five segments—the head, the cervical, the scapular, the abdominal, and the gluteal. At the junction of the head with the neck is a large deep collar or ruff or fold of skin, which gives a very peculiar appearance to the animal. Behind this is a second similar but smaller ruff, which does not hang so low down from the throat as the first. On the dorsal surface it transversely crosses the nape. It is then continued down angularly to about the centre of the anterior edge of the scapular shield, where it forms an obtuse angle with its posterior but major half. It is at the point where it forms this angle that it gives off what I call the cervical fold, which forms the boundary of the top front edge of the scapular shield, but is lost at a point in the shoulder nearly over the centre of the fore limb.

"The scapular shield is a thick cuirass-like plate of skin, studded with round projections about the size of a shilling, and bearing much resemblance to the heads of bolts by which the shield was riveted to the body, and hence called 'boiler-bolt tubercules.' This shield is often removed from the carcase of a slain rhinoceros as a trophy, 'and it is in its centre, but slightly low, that the fatal spot lies which will take him in the heart' (Pollock).