RHINOCEROS TICHORHINUS. ool 
which I owe to M. le Chevalier de Bril. Certain Ja- 
koutzki hunting this winter” (1771-2) “near Viloui, 
found the body of a great unknown beast. The Sieur 
Ivan-Argounof, Inspector of Zimovia, caused to be trans- 
mitted to the Prefecture of the province of Jakoutzk the 
head, a fore-foot, and a hind-foot of the animal, the whole 
of which were in an excellent state of preservation.* He 
says in his Memoir, dated the 17th of last January,” 
(1772) “‘that they found, in the month of December, 
the animal dead, and already much decomposed,+ at about 
forty versts above Zimovié de Vilouiskoe, on the sand of 
the bank, at the distance of one toise from the water and 
four toises from another higher and more precipitous es- 
carpment : it was about half buried in the frozen sand. 
They took its dimensions on the spot: it was three and 
three quarters Russian ells’ (aunes de Russie, about 
eleven and a half English feet) ‘im length, and they esti- 
mated its height at three and a half ells. The body of 
the animal, still retaining its corpulency, (encore dans 
toute sa grosseur,) ‘was clothed with its skin, which re- 
sembled leather ; but it was so far decomposed that they 
were unable to brmg away more than the head and the 
feet. These I saw at Irkoutsk; they seemed to me, at 
the first view, to belong to a Rhinoceros, which had been 
in full vigour. The head, especially, was very recognis- 
able, because it was covered by its skin. The skin had 
preserved all its exterior organization, and one could see 
upon it many short hairs, (on y appercevoit plusicurs poils 
* Pallas, in a more elaborate account of the same discovery which he communi- 
cated to the Imperial Academy of Sciences at Petersburg, states, “ Reliquum vero 
cadaver, corruptum valde, licet corio naturali adhuc obyolutum, in loco relictum, 
periit :’? Novi Commentarii Petropol., 1773, tom. xvii. p- 587. 
+ In his Memoir in the Petersburg Transactions, Pallas observes, “ foetorem 
spirabant non recens corruptarum carnium, sed latrinis prorsus antiquis compar- 
andum, quasi ammoniacalem.” Loc. cit. p. 589. 
