'run, Rhino, Run'

The rhinoceros, the world's second largest land animal, has been on earth for sixty million years, but in the very near future, the only rhinos left may well be those in zoos and wildlife reserves. Throughout history the rhino has beenpursued for its horn and hide, but never so ruthless as dring the lfast few decades - in the 1970s over half of Africa's rhinos were killed, exclusively for their horn - which is only compressed hair usually weighing less than three kilogrammes. Drs. Esmond and Chryssee Martin's book is as informative as it is timely. They describe the characteristics and behavior of the rhino in its few remaining habitats, and give a fascinating account of its history and the myths that seem always to have surrounded it. In the course of investigating the reasons for man's appalling inhumanity to this, the pachyderms, they travelled far and wide to study the trade in rhino products, and discovered some remarkable evidence of the uses to which they are put - from the drugs of traditional medicine in Taipei to the much-prized dagger handles of North Yemen. Prices for rhinoceros horn on markets in the Far East rose to record peaks in 1981, making the prospects for the rhino even more grim, as Elspeth Huxley emphasises in her Introduction; but the Martins have suggested how mankind can still make it possible for thinos to go on living at large in some parts of the world, which was theirs long before the advent of man. This book, with its admirably clear and factual text, and with sobering photographs by Mohamed Amin that highlight the tragedy of the story, comes not a moment too soon. Let us hope that it will do more than spread knowledge to an indifferent world; that it will arouse the support that is needed to save the rhinoceros - clearly at this eleventh hour sympathy is not enough.