o7ie-liorned Rhinoceros. 113 



St. Petersburgh for 1777*; but they remain at all times 

 concealed under the gum, and this is the reason why 

 Meckel did not see them in the living animal, ^vhile they 

 showed themselves in the skeleton. Mr. Thomas, a surgeon 

 of London, who has published some anatomical observa- 

 tions on the one-horned rhinoceros, also found these small 

 teeth in the skeleton of an individual four years of age. 



But what no one, as far as I know, has ever yet pub- 

 lished is, that the rhinoceros, during a certain period of its 

 life, has two similar incisors in the upper jaw, only they 

 are without the large ones, while in the lower jaw they are 

 amonw; the large ones. This, indeed, might be concluded 

 from Uie drawing of the intermaxillary of the very young 

 rhinoceros given by Camper the father in the Transactions 

 before mentioned f. T even at first conceived that these 

 bones must necessarily have been produced by another 

 species. 



But on examining the anatomical drawings of onr rhino- 

 ceros, made with the greatest care by Marechai under the 

 inspection of Viq-d'Azir and Dc Mertrud, I observed the 

 figure of a verv small tooth without the large upper Incisor 

 of the right side; and I saw in the explanation which ac- 

 companies that drawing, and which is by Viq-d'Azir, that 

 there was indeed on that side a small tooth which was 

 wanting in the other. I examined the skeleton, and found 

 on one side the remnant of an alveolus, but the tooth, al- 

 ready too much extirpated, had been lost at the time of 

 maceration ; on the other side the alveolus even had been 

 effaced . 



It may be readily seen that all these observations prove 

 nothing against the importance which characters taken from 

 the teeth have in zoology ; but to employ their number, for 

 example, as a character, we must no doubt take the proper 

 precautions to ascertain what it is, and in general to obtain 

 all the preliminary knowledge that may be necessary. One 

 will not then be in clanger of creating species which never 

 existed, — a fault which would be attended with as bad con- 

 sequences in the simple history of animals and in its sy- 

 stems as in gcolrjgy ; for, if natural history requires truth, it 

 is above all in those parts which are entirely conjectural |. 



After this necessary dicrcssion I shall return to my sub- 

 ject, and continue to describe the teeth of my rhinoceros. 



To obtain a complete knowledge of the teeth of herbivorous 

 animals, it is not enough to have seen them at one period of 

 life, as these teeth are continually wearmgdown; the figure 



• Plare ix. fii;. 3. + Plate Ix. fig. i. 



■J Sec l-'ssflis dc (Icoloi^ic dc M. Fdujaf, vol. i. p. 193—196. 



Vol. 20. No. 78. Nov'. 1804. II of 



