374 Journal of Travel and Natural History 



purchased of a dealer, who said that he received it direct from 

 Borneo." Even the dealer does not say it is a Bornean specimen. 

 We all know how a collector gathers from all quarters as he moves 

 along, and when his store is large enough, ships them home from 

 the last port he comes to. Are all that have been so accumulated 

 to be held as having been natives of the port of shipment ? Because 

 this skull was shipped from Borneo does it follow that it was killed 

 in Borneo ? In these seas the communication is so frequent and 

 easy between the different islands, that special caution in ascribing 

 a locality is necessary; and as if to warn Dr Gray from the blunder 

 he was falling into, he found another skull in the British Museum 

 collection, marked from Java, possessing exactly the same abnor- 

 malities as he gives as the characters of his supposed Bornean 

 species. 



Dr Gray gets over this difficulty by the conjecture that the 

 locality Java may possibly be a mistake for Borneo. " It was 

 purchased of a dealer, and has been marked R. Sondaicus Cuvier 

 Java, by some previous possessor. The habitat may depend on 

 the person having decided it to be R. Sondaicus." 



Had the facts been reversed, and the skull been labelled 

 " Borneo," we might have accepted the conjecture that Java was 

 meant, seeing that that would only be reconciling the facts to all 

 that we previously knew on the subject. But Dr Gray's proposition 

 asks us to run counter to all our previous knowledge, merely for 

 the sake of supporting his new quasi Bornean species — one of 

 whose chief titles to confidence depends on its being a native of 

 the new locality. We have no desire to prejudge the question. 

 The rhinoceros may be a native of Borneo — the skull said to have 

 been received direct from Borneo may have been so received, and 

 the animal that bore it may have been killed in Borneo, and it nuiy 

 have been by omission that it was not stated to have been killed 

 there — the skull labelled Java may have been so labelled by 

 mistake, and may have come from Borneo — Dr Gray's new species, 

 Rhinoceros nasalis, may be a good species " not yet observed in 

 the living state" — and variations in the nasal bones may furnish 

 sufficient characters by which to discriminate species ; but we 

 think until some or all of these possibilities shall have been proved 

 to be facts, it would be rash to conclude that the rhinoceros is a 

 native of Borneo. 



Leaving the larger species out of view, Borneo possesses many 

 remarkable mammals. One of the most interesting of these is the 



