242 RHINOCEROS SIMUS. 



attention to what Mr. Selous has already said — that uo 

 Museum in Europe or America possesses a specimen of 

 this huge animal and to point out that the country, in 

 which alone (as is possible but by no means certain) the 

 last stragglers exist , being now within the British Empire , 

 it is clearly our duty to endeavour to obtain and preserve 

 examples of the great white or square-mouthed Rhinoceros 

 for the use and information of posterity." 



In P. Z. S. L. 1886, p. 144, Dr. Sclater wrote: » Indeed, 

 as is well known , such specimens of the latter species 

 {Rh. simus) , with the exception of a single immature 

 example in the British Museum , are almost unknown in 

 Europe." 



Mr. F. C. Selous published in 1890 a book entitled 

 »A Hunter's wanderings in Africa" and in that book I 

 find on p. 447 in a list of game , shot between the 1st of 

 January 1877 and the 31 si December 1880, that Selous has 

 killed two white Rhinoceroses ; therefore the named two 

 animals are the two specimens mentioned in the Field, 

 and consequently the year 1883 (see Nature 1. c.) is not 

 correct. Although Selous only has shot two white Rhi- 

 noceroses he however often has seen living specimens, 

 so (A Hunter's wanderings, p. 60): » looking up I saw 

 a white Rhinoceros cow"; 1. c. p. 185: »on my return 

 journey I saw a good many Rhinoceroses of both the black 

 and white species"; 1. c. p. 359 : »on our way to the Hanyane 

 we one day came upon jive white Rhinoceroses" ! and on 

 p. 191: •» Rhinoceros simus is still to be found between the 



Okavango and Cunene-rivers In 1878 and 1880 I still 



found the square-mouthed (or white) Rhinoceroses fairly 

 numerous in a small tract of country in North-eastern 

 Mashuna Land, between the Umniati and Hanyane rivers.... 

 Their extermination in this portion of the country may 

 therefore , I am afraid , be expected within a very few 

 years , and the square-mouthed Rhinoceros loill then only 

 exist in a few tracts of S. E. Africa , in the neighbourhood 

 of the river SabiT' 



Notes from, the Leyden Museum, "Vol. XII. 



