THE ZOOLOGY OF BIUTISII INDIA. i) 



forward at considerable length.* They appear, however, to be tbat 

 the true JR. unicornis sive indicus is confined to the Tarai regions at 

 the base of the Eastern Himalayas, inclusive of the valley of the 

 upper Brahmaputra and province of Assam ; and that the B. sondaicus, 

 generally heretofore supposed to be confined to the islands of 

 Java and Borneo, extends right up the Malay peninsula into the 

 Sundarbans of Bengal, and even to the E/ajmahal hills north of 

 Calcutta. There seems to be no doubt that the two-horned Ehino- 

 reros of Sumatra (R. sumatranus) likewise ranges along the Malay 

 peninsula into the Tenasserim provinces, but though Mr. Blyth says 

 it is "rare in Assam," he does not furnish us with any precise 

 evidence aa to its occurrence so far north. It is interesting to the 

 student of geographical distribution to notice that the Sumatran 

 Ehinoceros, although ^z^o-horned, belongs strictly to the Asiatic 

 section of the genus with lower incisors, and has nothing to do with 

 the African type with deciduous lower incisors, in which two horns 

 are always present.f The Suidse are represented in India by various 

 " distinguishable" races of wild Sus, which Mr. Blyth groups to- 

 gether under the specific name of our European Sus scro^plia, and by 

 the little Pigniy Hog of the Tarai forests of Nepal and Gorruckpore, 

 which Mr. Hodgson described as Forcula salvania in 1847,:|: but of 

 which no satisfactory account has yet been published, although, we 

 believe, skin and skull are in our National collection. 



Of the marine order of Sirenia, the Dugong {Halicore indicd) 

 occurs in the Bay of Bengal — the specimens in the Society's Museum 

 being from the Andaman islands, where it seems the natives occasion- 

 ally use its flesh for food. 



The Cervidas of the Old "World are divisible into two sections — 

 the sub-families, CervinsD and Eusinse of Mr. Blyth, although we 

 should doubt even the generic distinctness of these two groups. The 

 Cervinse or typical Cervi can hardly be said to enter strictly into the 

 Eauna Indica — this form being characteristic of the northern regions 

 of the two Hemispheres. But the Cervus ivallicliii, which is dis- 

 tributed from the shores of the Caspian throughout the "mountain- 

 ranges of Caucasia and Persia, certainly occurs abundantly in the 



* See Mr. Bljth's article '•' On the living Asiatic Species j3^8|^B«Gm>s," 



J. A. S. B. xxxi. p. 151, (1862.) /^<\S>^}il^L 



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LjlLIBRARYjao 



\ Cf. De Blainvillc's Ortcographie, Ehinoceros, p. 209. A^N/ '<n09 A^XV-. 

 ± J. A. S. B. xvi. 423. (^ O ^^_ ^A^ 



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