x INDIAN RHINOCEROS 255 



is the sloping backwards instead of forward of the occipital crest 

 in all two-horned species, whether African or Asiatic. 



The Asiatic Rhinoceroses have, what the African animals 

 have not, functional incisor teeth throughout life. It has been 

 proposed on these and other grounds to separate generically the 

 African and Asiatic forms. 



The Asiatic Rhinoceroses include three well -differentiated 

 species, in all of which the skin is much thrown into folds. 

 Rli. indicus is the largest form. It is one horned, and has 

 enormous folds of skin at the neck and hanging over the limbs. 



FIG. 130. Indian Rhinoceros. Rhinoceros indicus. x^. 



So like artificial armour is this thick plating, that Albrecht Diirer 

 may be excused for having given the beast the appearance of 

 being actually mail-plated in a sketch which he made of a speci- 

 men sent over to the King of Portugal in 1513. This particular 

 beast, one of if not the first sent over to Europe, proved so in- 

 tractable in disposition that the king sent it as a present to the 

 Pope. But "in an access of fury it sunk the vessel on its 

 passage " ! The horn of this and of other species was held until 

 almost our times to have medicinal and other more curious values. 

 So recently as 1763 it was gravely asserted that a. cup made of 

 its horn would fall to pieces if poison were poured into it. 

 " When wine is poured therein," wrote Dr. Brookes in the year 

 referred to, " it will rise, ferment, and seem to boil ; but when 



