In the first place, it has great spreading feet. Now this is very important, for if the animal had small, hard hoofs, like those of the horse or the donkey, it would sink deeply into the loose sand at every step, and would soon be so tired out that it would be quite unable to travel any farther. But its broad, splay, cushion-like toes do not sink into the sand at all, and it can march easily along, hour after hour, where a horse could scarcely travel a mile.

Then it can go for several weeks with hardly any food. All that it finds as it journeys through the desert is a mouthful or two of dry thorns, and even at the end of the day its master has nothing to give it but a few dates. And on this meager diet it has to travel forty or fifty miles a day with a heavy load on its back.

But then, you must remember, the camel has a hump. Now this hump consists almost entirely of fat, and as the animal marches on day after day with scarcely any food, this fat passes back by degrees into its system, and actually serves as nourishment. So, you see, while the camel is traveling through the desert it really lives chiefly on its own hump! By the time that it reaches its journey's end, the hump has almost entirely disappeared. Little more is left in its place than a loose bag of empty skin. The animal is then unfit for work and has to be allowed to graze for two or three weeks in a rich pasture. Then, day by day, the hump fills out again, and when it is firm and solid once more the camel is fit for another journey.

More wonderful still, perhaps, is its way of carrying enough water about with it to last for several days.

Except the camel, typical ruminating animals, or those which chew the cud, have the stomach divided into four separate compartments, through which the food passes in turn. These are called the paunch, the honeycomb stomach or bag, the manyplies and the abomasum. In the camel the third of these is wanting, and the first and second are provided with a number of deep cells, which can be opened or closed at the will of the animal.

In these cells the animal is able to store up water. When it has the opportunity of drinking, it not only quenches its thirst, but fills up all these cells as well. In this way it can store up quite a gallon and a half of liquid. Then, when it grows thirsty, and cannot find a pool or a stream, all that it has to do is to open one or two of the cells and allow the contents to flow out, and so on from time to time until the whole supply is exhausted.

In this way a camel can easily go for five or six days without requiring to drink, even when marching under the burning sun of the desert.

Two kinds of camels are known, neither of which is now found in a wild state.

Arabian Camel

The first of these is the Arabian camel, which only has one hump on its back, and is so well known that there is no need to describe it. It is very largely used in many parts of Africa and Asia as a beast of both draught and burden. Camels for riding upon, however, are generally called dromedaries, and may be regarded as a separate breed, just as hunters are a separate breed from cart-horses. And while they will travel with a rider upon their backs at a pace of eight or nine miles an hour, an ordinary camel with a load upon its back will scarcely cover a third of that distance in the same time.

This camel is a bad-tempered animal. It gets very cross when it is made to kneel down to be loaded, and crosser still when it has to kneel again in the evening for its burden to be removed, and all day it goes grunting and snarling and groaning along, ready to bite any one who may come near it. And it is so stupid that if it wanders off the path for a yard or two, in order to nibble at a tempting patch of herbage, it goes straight on in the new direction, without ever thinking of turning back in order to regain the road.

Besides being used for riding and for carrying loads, the camel is valuable on account of its flesh and also of its milk, while its hair is woven into a kind of coarse cloth.

Bactrian Camel

This camel, which comes from Central Asia, has two humps on its back instead of one. It is not quite so tall as the Arabian animal, and is more stoutly and strongly built, while its hair is much longer and more shaggy. For these reasons it is very useful in rocky and hilly country, for it can scramble about for hours on steep and stony ground without getting tired, while its thick coat protects it from the cold.

Llamas

Llamas may be described as South American camels. But they are much smaller than the true camels, and have no humps on their backs, and their feet are not nearly so broad and cushion-like, while their thick woolly coat grows in dense masses, which sometimes reach almost to the ground.

There are four kinds of llamas, but we can only tell you about one of them, the guanaco.

This animal lives both among the mountains and in the plains. It is generally found in flocks, consisting of a single male and from twelve to fifteen females. But sometimes the flocks are much larger, and more than once several hundred animals have been seen together. The male always keeps behind the flock, and if he notices any sign of danger he utters a curious whistling cry. The does know exactly what this means and at once take to flight, while the male follows, stopping every now and then to look back and see if they are being pursued.

Usually, when two male guanacos meet, they fight, biting one another most savagely, and squealing loudly with rage. When one of these animals is killed, its skin is likely to be found deeply scored by the wounds it has received from its numerous antagonists.

If you go to look at the llamas in a zoo, we would advise you not to stand too near the bars of their enclosure, for they have a habit of spitting straight into one's face! When they are used for riding they will often turn their heads round and spit at their rider, just to show that they are getting tired. And if once they lie down no amount of persuasion or even of beating will make them get up again, until they consider that they have had a proper rest!

Zebras

There are three different kinds of these beautiful animals. The largest and finest is known as Grévy's zebra, which is found in the mountains of Somaliland. It has many more stripes than the other two, while the ground color is quite white. The smallest is the mountain zebra, which is only about as big as a good-sized pony, and has its legs striped right down to the hoofs. This is now a very scarce animal, being only found in one or two mountainous districts in South Africa, where no one is allowed to interfere with it. And between the two is the Burchell's zebra, which is about as large as a small horse, and has its legs white, with only a very few markings. This animal is quite common in many parts of the South African plains, and has often been domesticated, and taught to draw carriages and carts. Indeed, in some districts of Southern Africa, a coach drawn by a team of zebras instead of horses is not a very uncommon sight.

You would think that an animal, colored like the zebra would be very easily seen, even by night, wouldn't you? But strange to say, these creatures are almost invisible from a distance of even a few yards. Indeed, hunters say that they have often been so close to a zebra at night that they could hear him breathing, yet have been quite unable to see him!

This seems to be due to his stripes, for it has been found that while a pony can be easily seen from forty or fifty yards away on a moonlight night, it at once becomes invisible if it is clothed with ribbons in such a way as to resemble the stripes of the zebra!

Zebras are generally found in herds, and they have a curious habit of traveling about in company with a number of brindled gnus and ostriches, which all seem to be as friendly as possible together.

The Quagga

The quagga, which became extinct some time ago, never had a very extended range, but once it existed in great numbers on all the upland plains of Cape Colony to the west of the Kei River, and in the open treeless country lying between the Orange and Vaal rivers. North of the Vaal it appears to have been unknown.

The quagga seems to have been nearly allied to Burchell's zebra—especially to the most southerly form of that species—but was much darker in general color. Instead of being striped over the whole body, it was only strongly banded on the head and neck, the dark brown stripes becoming fainter on the shoulders and dying away in spots and blotches. On the other hand, in size and build, in the appearance of its mane, ears, and tail, and in general habits, it seems to have nearly resembled its handsomer relative. The barking neigh "quā-hā-hā, quā-hā-hā" seems, too, to have been the same in both species. The Dutch word quagga is pronounced in South Africa "qua-ha" and is of Hottentot origin, an imitation of the animal's neighing call. To-day Burchell's zebras are invariably called quā-hās by both Boers and British colonists.

Wild Asses

The true asses are without stripes on the head, neck, and body, with the exception of a dark streak down the back from the mane to the tail, which is present in all members of the group, and in some cases a dark band across the shoulders and irregular markings on the legs.

In Africa the wild ass is only found in the desert regions of the northeastern portion of that continent. It is a fine animal, standing between thirteen and fourteen hands at the shoulder. It lives in small herds or families of four or five individuals, and is not found in mountainous districts, but frequents low stony hills and arid desert wastes. It is as a general rule an alert animal and difficult to approach, and so fleet and enduring that excepting in the case of foals and mares heavy in young, it cannot be overtaken even by a well-mounted horseman. Notwithstanding the scanty nature of the herbage in the districts they frequent, these desert-bred asses are always in good condition. They travel long distances to water at night, but appear to require to drink regularly. Their flesh is eaten by the natives of the Soudan. The bray of the African wild ass, it is said, cannot easily be distinguished from that of the domesticated animal, which is undoubtedly descended from this breed.

In Asia three varieties of the wild ass are found, which were formerly believed to represent three distinct species; but all the local races of the Asiatic wild ass are now considered to belong to one species, and it is to them that reference is made in the description on pages 196 and 197.

These wild asses have a wide range, and are met with from Syria to Persia and Western India, and northward throughout the more arid portions of Central Asia. Like their African relatives, the wild asses of Asia are inhabitants of waste places, frequenting desert plains and wind-swept steppes. They are said to be as fleet and enduring as the others.

The wild asses of the desert plains of India and Persia are said to be very wary and difficult to approach, but the kiang of Tibet is always spoken of as a much more confiding animal, its curiosity being so great that it will frequently approach to within a short distance of any unfamiliar object, such as a sportsman, engaged in stalking other game.

Asiatic wild asses usually live in small families of four or five, but sometimes congregate in herds. Their food consists of various grasses in the low-lying portions of their range, but of woody plants on the high plateaus, where little else is to be obtained. Of wild asses in general the late Sir Samuel Baker once said: "Those who have seen donkeys only in their civilized state can have no conception of the wild or original animal; it is the perfection of activity and courage."

The Horse

Like the wild camels, genuine wild horses are very generally believed to be extinct. The vast herds which occur to-day in a wild state in Europe, America, and Australia are to be regarded, say those who believe in the extinction theory, as descended from domesticated animals which have run wild. So far as the American and Australian horses are concerned, this is no doubt true; but of the European stocks it is by no means so certain. However, without giving you any theory of our own, we will quote at some length from an interesting and instructive chapter on the horse by A. B. Buckley.

"There rose before my mind the level grass-covered pampas of South America, where wild horses share the boundless plains with troops of the rhea, or American ostrich, and wander, each horse with as many mares as he can collect, in companies of hundreds or even thousands in a troop. These horses are now truly wild, and live freely from youth to age, unless they are unfortunate enough to be caught in the more inhabited regions by the lasso of the hunter. In the broad pampas, the home of herds of wild cattle, they dread nothing. There, as they roam with one bold stallion as their leader, even beasts of prey hesitate to approach them, for, when they form into a dense mass with the mothers and young in their center, their heels deal blows which even the fierce jaguar does not care to encounter, and they trample their enemy to death in a very short time. Yet these are not the original wild horses; they are the descendants of tame animals, brought from Europe by the Spaniards to Buenos Aires in 1535, whose descendants have regained their freedom on the boundless pampas and prairies.

"As I was picturing them careering over the plains, another scene presented itself and took their place. Now I no longer saw around me tall pampas-grass with the long necks of the rheas appearing above it, for I was on the edge of a dreary, scantily covered plain between the Aral Sea and the Balkash Lake in Tartary. To the south lies a barren sandy desert, to the north the fertile plains of the Kirghiz steppes, where the Tartar feeds his flocks, and herds of antelopes gallop over the fresh green pasture; and between these is a kind of no-man's land, where low scanty shrubs and stunted grass seem to promise but a poor feeding-ground.

"Yet here the small long-legged but powerful tarpans, the wild horses of the treeless plains of Russia and Tartary, were picking their morning meal. Sturdy wicked little fellows they are, with their shaggy light-brown coats, short wiry manes, erect ears, and fiery watchful eyes. They might well be supposed to be true wild horses, whose ancestors had never been tamed by man; and yet it is more probable that even they escaped in early times from the Tartars, and have held their own ever since, over the grassy steppes of Russia and on the confines of the plains of Tartary. Sometimes they live almost alone, especially on the barren wastes where they have been seen in winter, scraping the snow off the herbage. At other times, as in the south of Russia, where they wander between the Dnieper and the Don, they gather in vast herds and live a free life, not fearing even the wolves, which they beat to the ground with their hoofs. From one green oasis to another they travel over miles of ground.

"As I followed them in their course I fancied I saw troops of yet another animal of the horse tribe, the kulan, or Equus hemionus, which is a kind of half horse, half ass, living on the Kirghiz steppes of Tartary and spreading far beyond the range of the tarpan into Tibet. Here at last we have a truly wild animal, never probably brought into subjection by man. The number of names he possesses shows how widely he has spread. The Tartars call him kulan, the Tibetans kiang, while the Mongolians give him the unpronounceable name of dschiggetai. He will not submit to any of them, but if caught and confined soon breaks away again to his old life, a 'free and fetterless creature.'

"No one has ever yet settled the question whether he is a horse or an ass, probably because he represents an animal truly between the two. His head is graceful, his body light, his legs slender and fleet, yet his ears are long and ass-like; he has narrow hoofs, and a tail with a tuft at the end like all the ass tribe; his color is a yellow brown, and he has a short dark mane and a long dark stripe down his back as a donkey has. Living often on the high plateaus, sometimes as much as fifteen hundred feet above the sea, this 'child of the steppes' travels in large companies even as far as the rich meadows of Central Asia; in summer wandering in green pastures, and in winter seeking the hunger-steppes where sturdy plants grow. And when Autumn comes the young steeds go off alone to the mountain heights to survey the country around and call wildly for mates, whom, when found, they will keep close to them through all the next year, even though they mingle with thousands of others.

"Till recent years the Equus hemionus was the only truly wild horse known, but in the winter of 1879-80 the Russian traveler Przhevalsky brought back from Central Asia a much more horse-like animal, called by the Tartars kertag, and by the Mongols statur. It is a clumsy, thick-set, whitish-gray creature with strong legs and a large, heavy, reddish-colored head; its legs have a red tint down to the knees, beyond which they are blackish down to the hoofs. But the ears are small, and it has the broad hoofs of the true horse, and warts on the hind legs, which no animal of the ass tribe has. This horse, like the kiang, travels in small troops of from five to fifteen, led through the wildest parts of the Dsungarian desert, between the Altai and Tian-Shan Mountains, by an old stallion. They are extremely shy, and see, hear, and smell very quickly, so that they are off like lightning whenever anything approaches them.

"So having traveled over America, Europe, and Asia, was my quest ended? No; for from the dreary Asiatic deserts my thoughts wandered to a far warmer and more fertile land, where between the Blue Nile and the Red Sea rise the lofty highlands of Abyssinia, among which the African wild ass, the probable ancestor of our donkeys, feeds in troops on the rich grasses of the slopes, and then onward to the bank of a river in Central Africa where on the edge of a forest, with rich pastures beyond, elephants and rhinoceroses, antelopes and buffaloes, lions and hyenas, creep down in the cool of the evening to slake their thirst in the flowing stream. There I saw the herds of zebras in all their striped beauty coming down from the mountain regions to the north, and mingling with the darker-colored but graceful quaggas from the southern plains, and I half grieved at the thought how these untamed and free rovers are being slowly but surely surrounded by man closing in upon them on every side.

"I might now have traveled still farther in search of the onager, or wild ass of the Asiatic and Indian deserts, but at this point a more interesting and far wider question presented itself, as I flung myself down on the moor to ponder over the early history of all these tribes.

"Where have they all come from? Where shall we look for the first ancestors of these wild and graceful animals? For the answer to this question I had to travel back to America, to those Western United States where Professor Marsh has made such grand discoveries in horse history. For there, in the very country where horses were supposed never to have been before the Spaniards brought them a few centuries ago, we have now found the true birthplace of the equine race.

"Come back with me to a time so remote that we cannot measure it even by hundred of thousands of years, and let us visit the territories of Utah and Wyoming. Those highlands were very different then from what they are now. Just risen out of the seas of the Cretaceous Period, they were then clothed with dense forests of palms, tree-ferns, and screw-pines, magnolias and laurels, interspersed with wide-spreading lakes, on the margins of which strange and curious animals fed and flourished. There were large beasts with teeth like the tapir and the bear, and feet like the elephant; and others far more dangerous, half bear, half hyena, prowling around to attack the clumsy paleotherium or the anoplotherium, something between a rhinoceros and a horse, which grazed by the waterside, while graceful antelopes fed on the rich grass. And among these were some little animals no bigger than foxes, with four toes and a splint for the fifth, on their front feet, and three toes on the hind ones.

"These clumsy little animals, whose bones have been found in the rocks of Utah and Wyoming, have been called Eohippus, or horse of the dawn, by naturalists. They were animals with real toes, yet their bones and teeth show that they belonged to the horse tribe, and already the fifth toe common to most other toed animals was beginning to disappear.

"This was in the Eocene Period, and before it passed away with its screw-pines and tree-ferns, another rather larger animal, called Orohippus, had taken the place of the small one, and he had only four toes on his front feet. The splint had disappeared, and as time went on still other animals followed, always with fewer toes, while they gained slender fleet legs, together with an increase in size and in gracefulness. First one as large as a sheep (Mesohippus) had only three toes and a splint. Then the splint again disappeared, and one large and two dwindling toes only remained, till finally these two became mere splints, leaving one large toe or hoof with almost imperceptible splints, which may be seen on the fetlock of a horse's skeleton.

"You must notice that a horse's foot really begins at the point which we call his knee in the front legs, and at his hock in his hind legs. His true knee and elbow are close up to the body. What we call his foot or hoof is really the end of the strong, broad, middle toe covered with a hoof, and farther up his foot we can feel two small splints, which are remains of two other toes.

"Meanwhile, during these long succeeding ages while the foot was lengthening out into a slender limb, the animals became larger, more powerful, and more swift, the neck and head became longer and more graceful, the brain-case larger in front, and the teeth decreased in number, so that there is now a large gap between the biting teeth and the grinding teeth of a horse. Their slender limbs too became more flexible and fit for running and galloping, till we find the whole skeleton the same in shape, though not in size, as in our own horses and asses now.

"They did not, however, during all this time remain confined to America, for, from the time when they arrived at an animal called Miohippus, or lesser horse, which came after Mesohippus and had only three toes on each foot, we find their remains in Europe, where they lived in company with the giraffes, opossums, and monkeys which roamed over these parts in those ancient times. Then a little later we find them in Africa and India; so that the horse tribe, represented by creatures about as large as donkeys, had spread far and wide over the world.

"And now, curiously enough, they began to forsake, or to die out in, the land of their birth. Why they did so we do not know; but while in the old world as asses, quaggas, and zebras, and probably horses, they flourished in Asia, Europe, and Africa, they certainly died out in America, so that ages afterward, when that land was discovered, no animal of the horse tribe was found in it.

"And the true horse, where did he arise? Born and bred probably in Central Asia from some animal like the kulan, or the kertag, he proved too useful to savage tribes to be allowed his freedom, and it is doubtful whether in any part of the world he escaped subjection. In England he probably roamed as a wild animal till the savages, who fed upon him, learned in time to put him to work; and when the Romans came they found the Britons with fine and well-trained horses.

"Yet though tamed and made to know his master, he has, as we have seen, broken loose again in almost all parts of the world—in America on the prairies and pampas, in Europe and Asia on the steppes, and in Australia in the bush. And even in Great Britain, where so few patches of uncultivated land still remain, the young colts of Dartmoor, Exmoor, and Shetland, though born of domesticated mothers, seem to assert their descent from wild and free ancestors as they throw out their heels and toss up their heads with a shrill neigh, and fly against the wind with streaming manes and outstretched tails as the kulan, the tarpan, and the zebra do in the wild desert or grassy plain."

CHAPTER XVII
THE ELEPHANTS, RHINOCEROSES, HIPPOPOTAMUSES, AND WILD SWINE

There are three reasons, perhaps, why elephants interest us so greatly.

The first is their enormous size. They are by far the largest of all the animals which live upon land. "Jumbo," for instance, the famous African elephant that we in the United States saw in the last century, was nearly twelve feet in height, and weighed more than six tons. A height of ten feet is quite common.

Next, there is their wonderful docility. When wild, no doubt, they are often very fierce and savage. Yet they are easily tamed; and it is a strange sight to see one of these giant creatures walking about with a load of children upon its back, and meekly obeying the lightest word of a man whom it could crush to death in a moment by simply placing its foot upon him.

And then, once more, there is that marvelous trunk, so strong that it can tear down great branches from the trees, and yet so delicate that it can pick up the smallest scrap of food from the ground. When the elephant wishes to feed, it seizes the food with its trunk and pokes it into its mouth. When it wishes to drink, it fills the same organ with water, and then squirts the contents down its throat. If it should be hot, it can take a shower-bath by squirting water over its body instead. And it breathes through its trunk and smells with it as well. So this wonderful member is used for a great many different purposes.

As it is so valuable, the elephant takes very great care of its trunk, always curling it up out of harm's way, for example, if it should find itself in any danger.

Two different kinds of elephants are known, one of which is found in Africa and the other in Asia.

The African Elephant

You can easily tell the African elephant by the great size of his ears, which are so large that a man might almost hide himself behind one of them. "Jumbo's" ear, indeed, measured no less than five feet five inches from side to side. When the animal is excited these enormous ears stand out at right angles to the head. Then the legs are much longer than those of the Indian elephant, while the trunk, instead of having one finger-like projection at the tip, has two, one in front and one behind. Both the male and female animal, as a rule, possess tusks, while in Indian elephants these weapons are only occasionally present in the male, and hardly ever in the female.

The tusks of the male elephant, however, are always much larger than those of his mate, and sometimes they grow to a very great size. A length of nine feet is not very uncommon, while tusks ten feet long, or even more, have sometimes been recorded. Generally one tusk is several inches shorter than the other, having been worn down in digging for the roots on which the animal is fond of feeding; for elephants seem to dig with one of the tusks only, and never with both.

The ivory of which these tusks are composed is so valuable that the African elephant has been most terribly persecuted, and in many districts where it was formerly plentiful it has disappeared altogether. It lives as a rule in herds, which seek the thickest parts of the forest during the day, and come out at night to search for food and water. And even a small herd of elephants will sometimes do a great deal of damage, for they will uproot trees eighteen or even twenty feet high, in order to feed upon the foliage of the upper branches, or snap off the stems quite close to the ground. When the tree is a large one, it is said that two elephants will unite in breaking it down.

You would think that a herd of elephants would be very conspicuous even in the thick forest, wouldn't you? Yet all hunters unite in saying that as long as they remain still it is almost impossible to see them, while they make their way through the bushes so silently that even when they are moving it is not at all easy to hear them.

The Indian Elephant

This elephant seldom exceeds nine feet in height at the shoulder, although larger examples are sometimes found. It lives in the thick jungle in herds of forty or fifty, which sometimes wander by night into cultivated ground, and do terrible damage to the crops. Now and then, however, a male elephant will live entirely alone. These solitary animals are always very fierce, and will rush out and attack any one who may pass by. For this reason they are known as "rogues."

The Indian elephant is very often tamed, and is taught to perform all kinds of heavy work, such as dragging timber or piling logs. It is also used for riding, a howdah with several seats being placed upon its back, while it is guided by a native driver, called a mahout, who sits upon its neck and directs its movements by means of a spiked hook. It is largely employed, too, in hunting the tiger. But for this purpose it has to be most carefully trained, for elephants are naturally very much afraid of tigers, and even after a long course of instruction will sometimes take to flight when the furious animal springs at them with open jaws and eyes flaming with rage.

Elephants in India are mostly captured by being driven into a large keddah, or enclosure of stout posts, from which they are unable to make their escape. In this way a large herd of the huge animals are often taken prisoners together.

Next in size to the elephants are the great creatures known as rhinoceroses, which are found both in Africa and in Asia. Five different kinds are known altogether, but we shall only be able to tell you about two.

The Indian Rhinoceros

In this animal the hide falls into great folds upon the shoulders and in front of the thighs, while there are smaller folds upon the neck and the hind quarters. The sides of the body are marked with a large number of round projections, sometimes as much as an inch in diameter, which look very much like the rivets in the iron plates of a boiler. When fully grown this animal stands rather over five feet in height at the shoulder.

The Indian rhinoceros has only one horn, which is generally about a foot long. This horn, strange to say, is not connected in any way with the bones of the skull, but is really a growth from the skin, although there is a bony prominence under it on which it is set. By means of a sharp knife, it could be cut away without difficulty. But it is a very formidable weapon, and some of the rhinoceroses with longer horns have been known to rush at a mounted hunter with lowered head, and then to strike upward with such terrible force that the horn has actually pierced the horse's body, and entered the thigh of the rider. Sometimes a rhinoceros will rush along with its head bent downward so far that the horn cuts a deep furrow in the ground.

This animal is chiefly found in the swampy parts of the great grass-jungles of India. It is very fond of taking a mud-bath, from which it comes out with its whole body thickly caked with clay. This serves as a great protection from flies and other insects, which persecute it terribly, forcing their way under the thick folds of hide at the shoulders and thighs, where the skin is thinner, and driving it nearly mad by the irritation of their bites.

In spite of its great size this rhinoceros is a rather timid animal, and nearly always runs away when it is attacked. But if it is wounded or brought to bay it becomes a terrible foe, charging with fury again and again, and striking savagely with its horn, and sometimes with its tusks as well.

The African rhinoceroses are without the folds of skin which are found in the Indian species, and have two horns on the head instead of one. Sometimes these horns are of very great length. We have seen a walking-stick that might serve a very tall man, which was cut from the core of such a horn.

The Common Rhinoceros

This is the better known of the two African species, and is found in almost all the wilder districts from Abyssinia to Cape Colony. It lives in the thickest parts of the forest, breaking away the bushes and the lower branches of the trees so as to leave a clear space perhaps fifteen or twenty feet in diameter. These retreats are called rhinoceros-houses, and the animals remain in them during the heat of the day.

The common rhinoceros is wonderfully quick and active for so large and heavy an animal, and is said to be able to overtake a man riding a fast horse. But it does not seem, as a rule, to be savage in disposition, and very seldom attacks a human foe. One great hunter tells us that although many rhinoceroses have advanced toward him to within twenty or thirty yards, they always ran away if he threw stones at them, or even if he waved his arms and shouted. When wounded, however, they will sometimes attack furiously. But they never think of looking for their enemy in a tree, and if he can climb on to a bough even three or four feet from the ground he is perfectly safe.

The Hyrax

Oddly enough, one of the animals most closely related to the rhinoceroses is much more like a rabbit, and actually lives in burrows in the ground. This is the hyrax, or coney, as it is called in the Bible, which almost anybody would mistake at first sight for a rodent. Yet when one comes to look at its front teeth he sees at once that instead of having flat, sharp edges, like a chisel, they are pointed; and these teeth do not continue to grow all through life, like those of the rodent animals. And besides this there are several other points in its bodily structure which show us that it really is a relation of the rhinoceroses.

About fourteen different kinds of hyrax are known, some of which are found in Africa, and the others in Arabia, Syria, and Palestine. They all live in rocky districts high up on the sides of mountains, a great number making their burrows close to one another, just as rabbits do in a warren. They are very active and sure of foot, and scamper up and down the sides of the rocks with the greatest ease. It is difficult to watch them, however, for they are so shy that they will not leave their holes if they think that any one can see them, while they only come out to feed at night and very early in the morning. Sometimes, it is true, they will lie out on the rocks during the day, enjoying the hot sunshine. But one of them is always appointed to act as a sentinel, and as soon as he notices the slightest sign of danger he gives the alarm, and then they all disappear into their holes.

Tapirs

Very odd-looking animals are the tapirs, which are found both in Central and South America, and also in some of the islands of the Malay Archipelago. They are about as large as donkeys, but look more like very big pigs. On the neck is a short, stiff, upright mane of black hairs, and the upper lip is lengthened out into a kind of trunk, something like that of an elephant, but on a very much smaller scale, and without the odd finger-like organ at the tip.

These curious animals live in thick forests near the banks of great rivers, and come out from their retreats chiefly by night. By constantly traveling backward and forward they make regular pathways through the thickets. They swim very well, and are fond of gamboling in the water, and also of rolling about on the muddy banks. But they are so timid that it is very difficult to watch them; and it is said that they will run away in terror from even a tiny dog.

But if a mother tapir thinks that her little one is in danger she seems to lose all sense of fear, and will even dash at a man and try to knock him down. And if she succeeds she will trample upon him and even bite him, just like the wild swine.

In America the great enemy of the tapirs is the jaguar, which springs upon them unexpectedly, and generally succeeds in tearing them to the ground. But sometimes they manage to escape either by rushing at once into the very thickest bushes, which sweep away their terrible enemy from his hold, or else by plunging into the water, when he is obliged to loose his grip for fear of being drowned.

The American tapirs are sooty brown in color, but that which is found in the Malayan Islands is white on the sides and the hinder parts of the body, while the young animal is spotted and streaked with white all over.

The Hippopotamus

The hippopotamus, or river-horse, is perhaps the most awkward and ungainly animal in the world. His huge body almost touches the ground as he waddles clumsily along, while his short stout legs are set so far apart that they actually make a double track through the herbage. So you can easily understand that when a herd of twenty or thirty of these enormous creatures find their way into a plantation they do terrible damage, eating a good deal, and trampling down far more than they eat.

Then what tremendous mouths they have! When they open their jaws wide, their heads really look as if they were splitting in two right down into their necks. And they have a most formidable array of tusks and teeth, arranged in such a manner that they mow down the herbage almost like the blade of a scythe.

The hippopotamus is a native of Africa, and is found in great numbers in many of the rivers and lakes. It spends a great deal of its time in the water, often sinking its body so low that only its nostrils appear above the surface. And it can dive for eight or even ten minutes at a time, without requiring to breathe. When it rises again it generally begins to blow out the exhausted air from its lungs just before reaching the surface, whereby a column of spray is forced up into the air, just as it is by a whale when spouting.

When a mother hippopotamus has a little one, she generally carries it about on her back.

A writer tells us that the first hippopotamus that was ever brought to the London Zoo was caught when it was quite young, on one of the islands in the White Nile. As its mother had gone away to feed, the hunter who found it picked it up in his arms and ran off with it toward the boat. The skin of these animals, however, is thickly covered with a kind of natural oil, and the result was that the little creature was so slippery that it wriggled out of his arms just as he reached the water's edge, and plunged into the river. But luckily the boat-hook was lying close by, and with this he struck at the escaping animal, gaffed it as one does a fish, and succeeded in capturing it again with nothing more than a wound in its thick skin, which very soon healed. After a great deal of trouble it was safely brought to England, and lived in the Zoo for twenty-nine years.

Another kind of hippopotamus, called the pygmy hippopotamus, is found in Western Africa. It is a very much smaller animal, being only about as big as a good-sized pig.

Swine

Next on our list come the swine, among the most famous of which is the wild boar.

Until about the middle of the sixteenth century this animal was plentiful in the British Isles, and it is still found commonly in the great forests of Europe. It is one of the fiercest and most savage of animals, for it does not seem to know what fear is, and will attack over and over again, even after receiving the most severe wounds. And its tusks are so sharp and powerful that they have been known to rip up the body of a horse at a single stroke. When removed from the jaw these tusks are generally about eight or nine inches long.

In India, where wild boars are very plentiful, they generally make their lair among thick bushes in some marshy district, and often do a great deal of mischief to cultivated crops in the neighborhood. They are fond of roots, too, which they grub out of the ground with their snouts, and in hot summers, when the ponds dry up, they are said to dig in the mud at the bottom in search of the fish which have buried themselves until the rainy season. The old boars generally live by themselves, like "rogue" elephants, but the younger ones and the sows go about together in droves of fifteen or twenty, all of which, most likely, are members of the same family.

The Babirusa

This is one of the most curious of the swine. It is found in the islands of Celebes and Borneo. In the boar of this animal the tusks in both jaws spring upward, and then curve toward the eyes, so that there is a sort of fringe, as it were, of tusks all round the face. Sometimes the upper pairs are thirteen or fourteen inches long, without counting the part that is buried in the jaw. These, however, are not very useful as weapons. But very severe wounds can be inflicted by the lower tusks, although they are a good deal smaller, and an enraged babirusa is a most formidable foe.

When fully grown, the babirusa stands about three feet six inches in height in the middle of the back, which is always very much arched. The color of the skin is dark ashy gray.

The Wart-Hog

The wart-hog, or vlack-vark, which is found in Eastern Africa, is certainly the ugliest of all the swine. Its head is enormously large in comparison with its body, the muzzle is very long and broad, under each eye is a great wart-like lump, with two others a little distance below it, and on each side of the mouth two great stout tusks spring upward. Altogether, it would be very hard to imagine a more sullen and ferocious-looking animal.

It is not nearly so savage as the babirusa, however, and if it is attacked it nearly always runs away, and tries to take refuge in some hole in the ground, such as the deserted burrow of an ant-bear. When it takes to ground in this way, it always turns round just before entering, and backs in tail foremost. Sometimes, if two or three men stand just over the burrow and jump heavily up and down in time together, it can be induced to bolt. But it is advisable to do so with a good deal of caution, for the animal has a singular way of turning a kind of back somersault just as it leaves its burrow, which lands it upon the top, just where the hunters would most likely be standing. And if they are not very careful one of them at least is almost sure to receive a slashing cut from the terrible tusks, which will certainly cause a severe wound, and may even render him a cripple for life.

When it is running away from a pursuer, and wishes to see whether it is gaining upon him, the wart-hog presents a most ridiculous appearance, for its neck is so short that it cannot turn its head round to look behind it. So it lifts its snout straight up into the air instead and looks over its shoulders. Besides this, it always carries its tail perfectly stiff and upright.

Peccaries

In South America, and in Mexico and western Texas, the wild swine are represented by the peccaries, of which there are two different kinds, the collared peccary and the less common white-lipped peccary. They are not very large animals, being only about three feet in length, and weighing not more than fifty or sixty pounds; but they are nevertheless very dangerous creatures, for three different reasons.

In the first place, they travel about in packs, sometimes consisting of thirty or forty animals, which all attack a foe together. In the second place, although their tusks are not nearly so long as those of the preceding animals, they are almost as sharp as razors, and can inflict most terrible wounds. Thirdly, the animals know no fear, and will go on savagely attacking any enemy, over and over again, until the last of them is killed. So if a hunter should meet with a herd of peccaries in the forest, even if he be armed with a gun, his only chance of escape is to climb into a tree and to stay there till they go away.

When a herd of peccaries is not very large—consisting, perhaps, of only ten or twelve individuals—they are very fond of taking up their abode in the hollow trunk of some fallen tree. In this case they can be very easily destroyed, for one animal is always placed at the entrance to act as a sentinel; and if a hunter conceals himself in some convenient place close by, takes careful aim, and shoots the watching peccary dead upon the spot, the animal behind him will just push out his carcass and take his place, to be himself shot in like manner. In this way the whole herd may be killed one after another.

Peccaries will eat almost any kind of food, and though they live as a rule in the thickest parts of the forests, they will often wander to long distances in order to feed upon the crops in cultivated ground. There they sometimes do an immense amount of damage, and as they generally come during the night, and leave again before daybreak, it is very difficult to trap or shoot them.

CHAPTER XVIII
EDENTATES, OR TOOTHLESS MAMMALS

The animals which belong to this order are distinguished by having no front teeth, while some of them have no teeth at all. And in many other ways they are very curious and interesting creatures.

Sloths

The sloths live almost entirely in the trees, scarcely ever descending to the ground. Not only that, they walk along underneath the branches instead of upon them, suspending themselves by means of their great hooked claws. So they actually spend almost the whole of their lives upside down, with their backs toward the ground!

Yet they manage to travel along from bough to bough and from tree to tree with some little speed, and when there is a high wind, so that the branches are blown together, they will often wander for long distances. And they never seem to get tired, although even during the night they still hang suspended, just as they do during the day.

Sloths are very odd-looking creatures, and if you were to see one of them hanging from a bough in its native forests you would find it rather hard to believe that it was really an animal at all. For it looks much more like a bundle of twigs overgrown with lichens. And the strange thing is that it really is covered with lichens, which grow upon its long, coarse hairs just as they do on the twigs of the trees. These give the fur of the sloth a curious green appearance, which disappears soon after death, so that one never sees it in a stuffed specimen in a museum.

When a sloth is hungry, there is always plenty of food close by, for it feeds only upon the leaves and fruits and the tender young shoots of trees. And as there is plenty of moisture in these, it never requires to drink at all.

There are two different groups of these singular animals, the first consisting of those which have three toes on the front feet, and the other of those which have only two. They are only found in the great forests of Central and South America.

Ant-Eaters

Equally curious, although in quite a different way, are the ant-eaters, or ant-bears, as they are sometimes called, the largest of which is the great ant-eater of tropical America.

When fully grown this animal is about four feet long, without counting the tail, while it is about two feet high at the shoulder. And it has two strange peculiarities.

In the first place, its head is drawn out into a kind of long, narrow beak, with the little round nostrils at the very tip. Then its tongue is very long and worm-like, and is exceedingly sticky, so that when it is swept to and fro among a number of ants, or other small insects, hundreds of them adhere to it and are carried into the mouth. This is the way in which the animal feeds, and if you go to look as the ant-eater in a zoo you may often see it poke its long tongue down between the boards at the bottom of its cage and bring up a cockroach which had vainly been seeking a place of refuge.

The other peculiarity is the enormous size of the tail, the hair of which is so long that when it is carried over the back it completely covers the whole of the body, and makes the animal look just like a haycock.

On its front feet the great ant-eater has very strong curved claws, with which it tears open the nests of the insects on which it feeds. When it is walking, of course, these claws are rather in its way, and it is obliged to tread on the sides of its feet instead of on the soles. But it manages, nevertheless, to shuffle along with some little speed, although its movements are very far from being graceful. And sometimes it uses them as weapons, for while it always tries to hug an enemy with its powerful forearms and squeeze him to death, the claws often enter his body and inflict a serious or even a fatal wound.

When a mother ant-eater has a little one to take care of, she always carries it about on her back, and only allows it to get down just now and then in order to feed.

There is another kind of ant-eater called the tamandua, which lives in the trees and has a prehensile tail, just like that of a spider-monkey. It is much smaller than the great ant-eater, and has a shorter and stouter head, while its tail is scarcely as bushy as that of a Persian cat. In color it is yellowish white, with a broad black patch which runs from the neck to the hind quarters, and then widens out so as to cover the whole of the flanks. The tip of the snout is also black. The animal, like the preceding, is a native of tropical America.

The Armadillos

These are remarkable for having their bodies almost entirely covered by a kind of natural armor, which consists of several bony plates growing in the skin. There are three of these plates altogether, one covering the head and shoulders, another protecting the back, while the third clothes the hind quarters. And they are fastened together by means of bony rings, so that when the animal rolls itself into a ball no gap is left between them. You know what a millepede or thousand-legs looks like when it rolls itself up, don't you? Well, imagine a thousand-legs as big as a football, and you will have a very good idea of an armadillo.

These animals do not appear to be in the least inconvenienced by their singular armor, and are able to run with considerable speed. They are able to dig very well, too, by means of the large and powerful claws with which their front feet are furnished, and it is said that if a man on horseback sees an armadillo running by his side, and leaps to the ground to secure it, he will nearly always find that it has succeeded in burying itself before he is able to seize it.

The six-banded armadillo is so called because the horny plate upon its back is broken up into six separate bands, all of which, however, are closely linked together by bony rings. Sometimes it is called the weasel-headed armadillo, because its head is thought to be rather like that of a weasel. It is about sixteen inches in length, without including the tail, and is found in Brazil and Paraguay.

The giant armadillo is very much larger, growing to the length of nearly a yard from the tip of the snout to the root of the tail. It lives in Brazil and Surinam, and feeds chiefly on ants and termites.

One of the most interesting of these creatures is the odd little pichiciago, which is only about five inches long, and has a pink shield upon its back, and fur of snowy white. It is found in the western parts of the Argentine Republic, in open sandy places, but nowhere seems to be very plentiful. It digs in a most curious manner. First of all, it scratches away for a minute or two with its front feet, just to loosen the soil. Then, supporting itself partly on its front feet and partly on its tail, it uses the hind feet with the most astonishing rapidity, so that it sinks down into the ground as if by magic. And, strange to say, it does not leave its burrow open behind it when it has gone in, but carefully closes the entrance, ramming the earth hard by means of the bony shield at the end of its body.

Pangolins

Among other animals called ant-eaters are the pangolins, which are more remarkable still. They are called scaly ant-eaters, because their heads, bodies, and tails are covered with large, pointed oval scales, which overlap one another very much like the tiles on the roof of a house. When they are alarmed they coil themselves up into balls, just as most of the armadillos do, and their muscles are so wonderfully strong that it is quite impossible to unroll them.

Seven different kinds of pangolins are known, four of which live in Africa, and three in Asia. They all feed chiefly upon ants and termites, which they catch by breaking down the walls of their nests, and licking up the insects with their long, worm-like tongues as they run about in confusion. They live either in crevices among rocks, or else in burrows which they dig for themselves in the ground. Sometimes these burrows are of very great size, that of the Indian pangolin often running for ten or twelve feet downward into the ground, and having at the end a sleeping-chamber at least five or six feet in diameter.

When a pangolin comes to the edge of an overhanging rock, and wishes to descend to the ground below, it coils itself up into a ball and then rolls over, alighting on the edges of its scales just as a hedgehog does upon its spines. In this way it can drop ten or fifteen feet without receiving any injury.

The different species of pangolin vary a good deal in size, but the largest of them, the giant pangolin, is between four and five feet long when fully grown, including the tail.

The Aard-Vark

This name means earth-pig, and has been given to the animal by the Boers of South Africa, because in general appearance it is rather like a pig. But then it has ears like those of a hare, and a muzzle and tongue like those of an ant-eater, while all its feet are furnished with long and stout claws. So that altogether it is a very odd-looking creature.

The aard-vark feeds entirely upon termites and ants, and is nearly always to be found where the nests of those insects are plentiful. It digs with great rapidity, and is said to be able to burrow into the ground faster than a man armed with a spade can dig it out. So it has no difficulty in tearing a hole through the walls of the termites' and ants' nests, and then it licks out the insects in thousands.

During the daytime the aard-vark is hardly ever to be seen, for it lies fast asleep in its burrow, which it seldom leaves till after sunset. Before digging this burrow, it mostly scoops out quite a number of half-finished ones, scraping a hole two or three feet in depth, and then leaving it and beginning on another. Why it does this nobody seems to know.

In former days it was thought that the lion and the elephant were in the habit of hunting the aard-vark together, the elephant flooding its burrow, by means of a stream of water from his trunk, and the lion pouncing upon the animal as it ran out.

When fully grown the aard-vark is rather over six feet in total length, about one third of which is occupied by the tail. The body is very heavily and clumsily built, and the back is a good deal arched in the middle. In color it is yellowish brown, with a tinge of red on the back and sides, while the lower surface is rather paler.

CHAPTER XIX
THE MARSUPIALS

The last order of mammals is a very curious one, for in most of the animals which belong to it there is a large pouch on the lower part of the body of the female, in which she carries her little ones about for several weeks, or even several months, after they are born. That is why these creatures are called marsupials, for marsupial means pouched. Even after the little animals are quite able to take care of themselves they will hurry back to their mother and jump into her pouch in moments of danger.

It is quite true that in a good many marsupials this pouch is wanting. But traces of it are almost always to be found, although sometimes they are so slight that only a very careful observer would be likely to notice them.

In earlier days marsupial animals lived in almost all parts of the world, for there are very few countries in which their fossil remains have not been discovered. But now they are almost entirely restricted to Australia, the only exceptions being the opossums, which are found in America.

Kangaroos

The largest, and in some respects the most interesting, of the marsupials are the kangaroos. In some ways they are rather like gigantic hares. But their front legs are so much smaller than the hinder ones that they cannot run on all fours, but travel by means of a series of leaps, skipping about, in fact, instead of running. And besides this they have very long and stout tails, which serve to support them when they are sitting upright, and also help them to balance their bodies when they are leaping.

The male kangaroo, which is often known as the "boomer," or as the "old man," is very much larger than the female, sometimes attaining to a total length of eight feet six inches, or even nine feet, nearly half of which is occupied by the tail. But when he is sitting upright he is nearly as tall as a tall man. The female is about two feet shorter.

Although it is obliged to hop along instead of running, the kangaroo is a very swift animal, and can only be run down by fast and powerful dogs. At every leap it covers about fifteen feet of ground, the distances between the holes which its great claws make in the ground being as regular as if they had been marked out with a measuring-tape.

These huge claws are very formidable weapons, and the kangaroo well knows how to use them. As a rule it is a very timid animal, and when it is attacked its first idea is always to seek safety in flight. But if it is driven to bay it takes up its post with its back against a tree, so that it cannot be approached from behind, and quietly awaits the onslaught of its enemies. Then, as soon as one of them comes within reach, it kicks suddenly out with one of its hind feet, delivering its stroke with such force that the great sharp claw has been known to rip up the body of a large dog from end to end, and to stretch the poor beast dying upon the ground. For this reason hounds which are used in kangaroo-hunting are made to wear collars of twisted steel chain, to protect them from the stroke of their quarry.

Sometimes, too, when a hunted kangaroo finds that it cannot escape simply by speed, it will wade into a pool or river, wait till the dogs swim up to it, and then seize them with its fore limbs one after another, and hold them under water till they are drowned. Although they are not large, these front limbs are wonderfully strong, and if even a powerful man were to be embraced by them he would find it very difficult to make his escape.

The female kangaroo, however, is not nearly so well able to defend herself, and sometimes she has been known, when chased by hounds, to lie down and die simply from fear. But sometimes she escapes by taking a sudden leap sideways into thick bushes, lying perfectly still until her pursuers have rushed past her, and then making off in the opposite direction.

As the mother kangaroo hops about, the head of her little one, or "joey," as it is called, may often be seen poking out of her pouch. And she is so clever that if an enemy should appear when the "joey" is playing on the ground or feeding, she will snatch it up and put it into her pouch even while she is hopping away, without pausing for a moment in her retreat.