The rhinoceros feeds upon coarse herbs, such as thistles and prickly shrubs, and he prefers this wild food to the sweet pasture of the verdant meadows. He is fond of sugar canes, and eats also all sorts of corn. Having no taste for flesh, he neither molests small animals, nor fears the large ones, but lives in peace with them all, not excepting the tiger, who often accompanies, without daring to attack him; therefore, I doubt, whether the battles betwixt the elephant and rhinoceros, have any foundation; they must at least be seldom, since there is no motive for war on either side; and, besides, no sort of antipathy has been observed between these animals. Some even in captivity have lived quietly together, without giving offence or provocation. Pliny is, I believe, the first who has mentioned these battles betwixt the rhinoceros and elephant. It seems they were compelled to fight in the spectacles at Rome, and, probably from thence the idea has been taken, that when in their natural state they fought as desperately; but every action without a motive is unnatural; it is an effect without a cause, which cannot happen but by chance. The rhinoceroses do not herd together, nor march in troops like the elephants; they are more wild and solitary, and perhaps more difficult to hunt and subdue. They never attack men unless provoked; but then they become furious, and are very formidable. Neither scymetars, darts, nor lances, can make an incision upon his skin, which even resists musket balls; the only places penetrable in his body are the belly, the eyes, and round the ears; so that the hunters, instead of facing and attacking this animal, follow him at a distance by his track, and wait till he lies down to rest or sleep. We have in the king's cabinet a foetus of a rhinoceros, which was extracted from the body of the mother, and sent from the island of Java: it was said, in a memorial which accompanied this present, that twenty-eight huntsmen having assembled to attack this rhinoceros, they followed her at a distance for some days, one or two walking now and then before to reconnoitre her situation; by these means they surprised her when she was asleep, and silently came so near that they discharged at once their twenty-eight guns into the lower parts of her belly.