THE RHINOCEROS. 19 



England in 1685 : a third was exhibited over almost the 

 whole of Europe in 1739; and a fourth, which was a female, 

 in 1741 . That exhibited in 1739 was described and figured by- 

 Parsons, in the Philosophical Transactions (vol. xlii. p. 583), 

 who mentioned also that of 1685 and of 1741 . A fifth specimen 

 arrived at Versailles in 177^ and it died in 1793 at the age of 

 twenty-five or twenty-six years. The sixth was a very young 

 rhinoceros, which died in this country in the year 1800 : 

 some account of its anatomy was published by Mr. Thomas, 

 in the Philosophical Transactions for that year. Lastly, a 

 seventh specimen was living a few years ago in the Garden 

 of Plants at Paris. All these specimens were one-horned, 

 and all from India. So that the two-horned rhinoceros has 

 never been brought alive to modern Europe, and it was long 

 before even an accurate description of it was given by tra- 

 vellers ; its existence was known only by specimens of the 

 horns adhering to the skin of the head, which were preserved 

 in different museums. As these specimens were from Africa, 

 and as the first authentic accounts of the living animal of the 

 two- horned species were derived from the histories of African 

 travellers, a general notion prevailed that Asia afforded the 

 one-horned species only, and that the two -horned kind was 

 peculiar to Africa. However, in the year 1793, Mr. William 

 Bell, a surgeon in the service of the East India Company, 

 discovered a species of rhinoceros in the Island of Sumatra, 

 which had also two horns, whose skin, like the African two- 

 horned species, did not exhibit those folds which are so pe- 

 culiar to the hide of the Indian rhinoceros. This species, 

 however, differed from the African rhinoceros in possess- 

 ing incisive or front teeth, which in the latter are wholly de- 

 ficient. The Abyssinian traveller Bruce has given a vague 

 indication of a two-horned rhinoceros, which exhibits the 

 plaiting of the hide peculiar to the Indian species ; and some 

 naturalists have supposed it probable, from the form of the 

 horns, that this may ultimately be found to be a true and di- 

 stinct species. More recently, again, the accurate and scien- 

 tific traveller Burchell has announced the existence in the 

 interior of the southern promontory of Africa, of a rhino- 

 ceros double the size of the ordinary Cape species, which, 

 like it, has also two horns, and a skin without hairs or folds, 

 but which differs in having the lips and nose thickened, en- 

 larged, and as if flattened. 



Thus we find that two, if not three, distinct species of two- 

 horned rhinoceros exist in Africa, and that another distinct 

 species, similarly armed, is found in Sumatra. Lastly, we 

 have to add a second species with one horn, discovered by 



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