358 RHINOCEROS. 
of the Rhinoceros discovered at Plaisance, and the results 
of a careful comparison of three large drawings of that 
fossil, made at his request by MM. de la Marmora 
and Gené at Milan; from which he was led to conclude 
that the drawing published by Cuvier was very defective 
in one of the most essential points, and had led the great 
Anatomist into the error of creating a species which had 
never existed.* 
M. Christol found, in fact, that the bony septum of 
the nose had been omitted in the sketch engraved in the 
‘Ossemens Fossiles,’ whilst a considerable portion of it 
actually existed in the fossil; and that the anterior 
extremity of the nasal bones, represented as projecting 
freely forwards in the Cuvierian figure, were evidently 
broken off in the actual fossil, according to the large 
drawings transmitted to him by Prof. Gené. (Loe. cit. 
p- 70.) 
The discrepancies between the figures published by 
Cuvier and M. Christol are obvious enough; and one can 
scarcely avoid conceding to the later observer, that he 
has established the fact of the existence, in M. Cortesi’s 
fossil, of the chief character, viz., the bony partition of 
the nose, the absence of which was mainly depended on 
by Cuvier as the distinctive feature of his Rhinoceros a na- 
rines non-cloisonnées. Since, however, this species rests not 
only upon M. Brongniart’s drawing of the skull at Milan, 
but upon characters deduced, by Cuvier’s own observation, 
from lower jaws obtained from fresh-water deposits in 
Italy, M. Christol, who had not any more than Cuvier 
* “Cuvier n’a pas eu occasion de la voir, il n’a pu en décrire la téte que 
daprés un dessein qui, tout en retragant assez exactement les contours généraux 
de cette téte, est trés incomplet dans le point le plus essentiel, et me parait avoir 
induit Cuvier en erreur en le portant 4 créer une espéce qui n’a point existé.” 
Christol, loc. cit. p. 47. 
