t 350- ] 



LVII. Osteological Description of the one-homed Rhino- 

 ceros, by Cuvier 3 *. 



/lis I propose to publish a part of the researches I have 

 made to discover to what species the tossil bones have be- 

 longed, I must first give the osteology of some quadrupeds, 

 which, under this point of view have never yet been de- 

 scribed. 



When Pallas first published, in the 13th vol. of the No- 

 vi Comment arii of Petersburg!*, an account of the fossil 

 bones of the rhinoceros found in different parts of Siberia, 

 he regretted that he did not find in the work of any natu- 

 ralist an osteological description of the living rhinoceros, 

 and particularly of the cranium. 



Some time after Camper had an opportunity of procur- 

 ing a part of what he wanted j he transmitted to the Aca- 

 demy of Petersburgh a description and figures of the head 

 and cranium of the two-horned rhinoceros of the Cape of 

 Good Hope. His memoir was inserted in the first volume 

 of the Transactions for the year 1777* part ii, which was 

 not printed till 1780. 



This great anatomist had then no knowledge of the 

 difference of the teeth, by which the two species of rhino- 

 ceros are characterized ; and as he did not find incisors in 

 his two-horned species, he accused Parsons, Linnaeus, and 

 Buffon of error, for having ascribed any to the one-horned 

 species. 



But before his memoir was printed' he paid a visit to Pa- 

 ris, and, having observed the one-homed rhinoceros then in 

 the menagerie at. Versailles, he found its incisors. He 

 .even procured the head of a young individual of this spe- 

 cies, and had a drawing made of the alveoli. He immedi-* 

 ately_ sent an account of all these facts to Pallas, that they 

 might be printed along with his memoir, i 



He related the same facts in his Dutch dissertation on the 

 one- horned rhinoceros, printed in 1 782, the figures of which 

 \vere ; the same as those transmitted to the Academy of Pe- 

 tersburgh. . 



These he confirmed in 1785, when he procured a draw- 

 ing of the head of a one-horned rhinoceros preserved in 

 the British Museum; and having obtained an older than 

 that which he had first in his possession, he caused it to be 

 engraved by Vinkeles in 1767, with the old figure of the 

 one-horned rhinoceros, in a superb folio plate, dedicated to, 



* Frotn Annates du Museum National d'Histoire Naiurelle, No. 13. 



