THE ONLY RHINOCEROS the College
"THE ONLY RHINOCEROS the College is ever likely to acquire" has been stiffened against a wall green as a canned pea. It can remain monster only in a child's-eye hyperbole and there thunder its great tusk across danger at full bellow. Who else could believe it rooted up Africa decades ago? slyly watched Theodore Roosevelt watch slyly right past? now that old doors have been fetched from the attic and the thing glassed
behind a curious, tentative, tilted construction at last to defend it from rude testing by tourists. Oh, if D.H. Lawrence could write to define it for us boiled in sun and lust, or that Miss Moore might travel up from Brooklyn with her highly illustrated manuals to demonstrate all its meaning, mastery and skills. It has lost parts and lustre on its shellacked pedestal; for even a third-grader who's studied pygmies sees cracks to stop his fancying that thus, with tail and right ear pasted back, this square-jawed creature once plowed along in animal attack. The very young, brought on rainy days, still get excited, yes. Any elder eye knows the case the College has provided makes the last this rhino is ever likely to reside at.
Mr. Noll, Assistant Professor of English at Dartmouth, based his poem on this lament in the annual report of the Dartmouth Museum: "One of the last specimens to remain on exhibit without glass protection was the mounted rhinoceros, which was acquired as a gift from the American Museum of Natural History in 1941. Although possibly not the very best example of taxidermic art, this specimen nevertheless is of good quality and is probably the only rhinoceros that the College is ever likely to acquire. Its tough, board-like hide was thought indestructible and its display without costly protective measures was deemed feasible. But, alas, the destructive powers of the museum visitor were underestimated. Through the course of time repairs have been made to remedy a loosened horn, a detached ear, and a broken tail. Finally, last year the tail was once more broken in another place and could not again be repaired with sufficient strength to withstand further onslaught. Some old glass doors were brought from the attic and an improvised case was made. The result looks what it is, a temporary expedient, but prospects of a permanent solution are not yet in sight."
