Rhinoceros
2 of the 7 encyclopedias on this shelf carry an entry for Rhinoceros. Both are reproduced below, so you can see where they agree and where they differ.
Aiton's Encyclopedia (1910)
Important: Safety Warning This page describes collecting wild birds' eggs, shooting birds for specimens, or similar practices. These activities are now illegal under wildlife-protection laws, including the Migratory Bird Treaty Act, and they contributed to the decline of the very species described. This information has been left in for historical purposes but should not be acted upon. ri-nos'e-ros (Greek, nosehorned), a powerful, thick-skinned animal next to the elephant in size. It is exceedingly heavily set, bulky, and clumsy, with a pig-like body about five feet in height and from eight to ten feet in length. A large specimen often weighs 6,000 pounds. The hide is almost hairless, excepting the tip of the tail and surfaces of the ears, and is so thick and hard that it covers the body like plates of sole leather with a few wrinkles to permit movements of the limbs and head. The feet are broad and flat like those of an elephant, but each foot has three separate toes armed with hoof-like claws. The neck is thick and short, the ears are rather long, and are not unlike those of the pig. The eye of the rhinoceros is small and so deeply set that it is unable to see either straight ahead, or backward. It is obliged to turn its body sidewise like a pig, if it wishes to look straight ahead. The snout is long but the jaws are of equal length. The rhinoceros does not have a trunk, but its upper lip is long and pliable, enabling the animal to seize grass or other food. There are several species confined to Africa, southern Asia, and the Indian Archipelago. The upper lip of the Indian species is armed with a horn, sometimes three feet in length and not less than six inches in diameter at the base. It is an outgrowth of the skin, like a tuft of hair, and has no connection with the bone of the upper jaw. It is a terrible weapon of defense against the tiger or other animal unwise enough to attack it, and also useful in rooting, for a rhinoceros is fond of digging after the manner of a hog. The small rhinoceros of South Africa has two horns, one behind the other. Livingstone describes this species as a vicious, dangerous beast, likely to attack hunters if disturbed. Like the elephant, the rhinoceros has but one young at a time, and this at long intervals, and like the elephant again, the rhinoceros ranges in jungles in small families of five or six, living entirely on vegetable food, grasses, cane, and succulent roots. It is very fond of wallowing in mire like the hog. In captivity, it lives on any forage that cattle will eat. In geologic times woolly species were companions of the mammoth in Arctic regions . Fossil remains have been found in North America also. See Elephant ; Hippopotamus; Boar; Tapir The huge beast was standing in entirely open country, although there were a few scattered trees of no great size at some little distance from him. We left our horses in a dip of the ground and began the approach; I cannot say that we stalked him, for the approach was too easy. The wind blew from him to us, and a rhino's eyesight is dull. Thirty yards from where he stood was a bush four or five feet high, and though it was so thin that we could distinctly see him through the leaves, it shielded us from the vision of his small, piglike eyes as we advanced toward it, stooping and in single file, I leading. The big beast stood like an uncouth statue, his hide black in the sunlight; he seemed what he was, a monster surviving over from the world's past, from the days when the beasts of the prime ran riot in their strength, before man grew so cunning of brain and hand as to master them. So little did he dream of our presence that when we were a hundred yards off he actually lay down. Walking lightly, and with every sense keyed up, we at last reached the bush and I pushed forward the safety of the double-barreled Holland rifle which I was now to use for the first time on big game. As I stepped to one side of the bush so as to get a clear aim, with Slatter following, the rhino saw me and jumped to his feet with the agility of a polo pony. As he rose I put in the right barrel, the bullet going through both lungs. At the same moment he wheeled, the blood spouting from his nostrils, and galloped full on us. Before he could get quite all the way round in his headlong rush to reach us, I struck him with my left-hand barrel, the bullet entering between the neck and shoulder and piercing his heart. At the same instant Captain Slatter fired, his bullet entering the neck vertebrae. Ploughing up the ground with horn and feet, the great bull rhino, still head toward us, dropped just thirteen paces from where we stood.--Theodore Roosevelt, in Scribner's. One-horned rhinoceros Two-horned African rhinoceros. the rhinoceros
Collier's New Encyclopedia (1921)
(1) the sole recent genus of the family Rhinocerotidæ. It falls naturally into three sections, which some zoologists raise to the rank of genera. (a) Rhinoceros. -Adults with a single large compressed incisor above on each side, occasionally a small lateral one, below a very small median, and a very large procumbent, pointed, lateral incisor; nasal bone pointed in front; single nasal horn; skin very thick, and raised into strong, definitely arranged folds. There are two INDIAN RHINOCEROS well-marked species: (1) Rhinoceros unicornis (Linnæus; indicus, Cuvier), now found wild only in the terai regions of Nepal and Bhotan and in Assam, though it had formerly a much wider geographical range; (2) R. sondaicus (or javanus, Cuvier), the Javan rhinoceros, is smaller and distinguished by the different arrangement of the folds of the skin, and by the small size or absence of the horn in the female. Found near Calcutta, in Burma, Malay Peninsula, Java, Sumatra, and probably Borneo. R. unicornis was known to the ancients, and was seen probably for the first time by modern Europeans when one was sent to the King of Portugal from India in 1513. (b) Ceratorhinus. - The folds are not so strongly marked as in the first section. There is a well-developed nasal, and a small frontal horn, separated by an interval. The name, R. sumatrensis, has possibly been applied to more than one species, and two animals in the Zoological Gardens, Regent's Park, London, presented considerable differences of form and color. Sclater named one of them R. lasiotis, the hairy-eared rhinoceros. Geographical nical range nearly the same as that of the Javan rhinoceros, but it does extend into Bengal. (c) Atelodus, with two well-marked species, peculiar to Africa. Incisors rudimentary or wanting, well-developed anterior and posterior horns in close contact; skin without definite permanent folds. R. bicornis, the common two-horned rhinoceros, is the smaller, and has a pointed prehensile lip. It ranges from Abyssinia to Cape Colony, but the progress of civilization and the attacks of sportsmen are rapidly reducing its numbers. Two varieties are said to exist, R. bicornis major and R. bicornis minor. Specimens in which the posterior horn has attained a length as great as or greater than the anterior have also been separated under the specific name of R. keitloa, but with scarcely sufficient reason. R. simus, Burchell's, the square-mouthed, or white rhinoceros, has a square truncated lip, browses on grasses and frequents open country. It is the largest of the family, an adult male standing over six feet at the shoulder. The epithet white is a misnomer, for the animal is a dingy slate-color. A local variety in which the horn has a forward rake is sometimes described as R. oswellii. (2) Any individual of the genus rhino- The rhinoceros is the largest and ceros. most powerful terrestrial mammal, except the elephant, to which, as well as to the hippopotamus and tapir, it is allied. They are of low intelligence, and usually harmless, but when provoked they display considerable ferocity, and, though apparently so clumsily formed, can run with great speed. Only one is produced at a birth. The flesh is sometimes used for food; in the East Indies, the skin, which is said to be bullet-proof at short AFRICAN RHINOCEROS distances, is used for shields, and in South Africa it is made into whips. R. pachygnathus, from the Miocene of Greece, was apparently intermediate between R. bicornis and R. simus. Four species, all bicorn, formerly inhabited Britain: R. tichorhinus, the woolly rhinoceros, from the brick-earths of the Thames valley; R. hemitæchus (Falc., leptorhinus, Owen), R. megarhinus (leptorhinus, Cuvier and Falc.), and R. truscus, of Pliocene age. The one-horned Indian type was well represented (R. sivalensis, R. palæindicus) in the Pleistocene of the sub-Himalayan region. R. schleirmacheri, of the late European Miocenes, possessed incisors and was bicorn.