Osteological Description of the one-horned Rhinoceros, §51 



I. Vandersteege ; this plate, however, was never published, 

 but distributed among his friends. For one of them I was 

 indebted to the kindness of his son. 



This figure of the head of the unicorn is imperfect, as 

 the real figure of the bones is still covered by some liga- 

 ments: there is one in particular behind the orbit, which 

 might deceive those little acquainted with the subject, 

 and be considered as an osseous partition separating this 

 fossa from that of the temples. 



M. Blumenbach, however, has copied this plate on a 

 6mall scale, in his collection of objects relating to natural 

 history, No. 7. 



M. Faujas also caused to be delineated on a small scale, 

 by Mareschal, the bones of the head of an adult one-horned 

 rhinoceros, which is preserved in the Museum, and had it 

 engraved in the 10th plate of his Essais' de Geologie, but 

 this figure is not accompanied by any description. Besides, 

 though very exact on the whole, it is confused by the ru- 

 gosities being too strongly marked by the engraver, and the 

 sutures not being seen. 



If to these be added the excellent figures of the lower 

 face of the cranium and of the lower jaw of the one-horned 

 rhinoceros given by M. Merck, in his third knter on fossil 

 bones, printed at Darmstadt in 1786, we shall have, I be- 

 lieve, a complete catalogue of the materials hitherto pub- 

 lished in regard to the osteology of this remarkable species 

 of quadrupeds; and it will be seen that 1 am not pre- 

 cluded from resuming the subject, and treating it with an 

 extent suited to its importance. 



The pieces which will serve as a basis to my description 

 are the beautiful skeleton prepared' by M. Mertrud, of the 

 rhinoeeros which lived twenty-one years in the menagerie 

 at Versailles, the same which was examined alive by M. 

 Mickel and Peter Camper; and the head of a younger rhi- 

 noceros, for which our Museum is indebted to the genero- 

 sity of Adrian Camper, and which served as an original for 

 the plate given by his illustrious father. 



1st, The Bead. 



What strikes most in the form of the head of the rhino- 

 ceros, {see Plate VII.) is the pyramidal projection of the 

 cranium : the occipital bone forms the posterior face of it, 

 and the temporal fossae are the faces of the sides: the ob- 

 liquely ascending continuation of the front is the anterior 

 face; and instead of a point the summit is a transverse line 1 . 



The occipital ascends obliquely from behind forwards, 

 ed 3 which 



