: RHINOCEROS. 79 
RHINOCEROS, Linnarvs. 
THE existing species of Fhinoceros are confined to Africa and Asia, and the 
Islands of Java and Sumatra. A vast quantity of remains of extinct species have 
been discovered in Great Britain, the continent of Europe, Siberia, and the Hima- 
layas, but, until the region of Nebraska had been visited, no traces of the genus 
had been found in America." 
The number of extinct species which have been proposed, frequently upon the 
slightest characters, is so great, that the criticism of De Blainville upon their 
authors appears to be quite just: “Qui semblent considérer les os comme des in- 
dividus, comme des masses minérales, sans considérations biologiques ou physio- 
logiques; en sorte que les espéces se eréent chez eux, pour ainsi dire, au compas.” 
Among the fossil remains discovered at Nebraska, are those of two species of 
Rhinoceros, certainly different from any of those found in other parts of the globe. 
The larger of the two species, as indicated by an almost entire skull, was nearly 
three-fourths the size of the Rhinoceros indicus, or it was about the size of the 
Rhinoceros minutus, Cuvier, which is regarded by De Blainville as a small variety 
of the Rhinoceros incisivus. The other was less than two-thirds the size of the for- 
mer species, and is therefore the smallest Rhinoceros which has ever yet been indi- 
cated. 
1 Tn the Monthly American Journal of Geology, ete., 1831, p. 10, the editor, G. W. Featherstonhaugh, 
has given a description of what he considered to be the fragment of a jaw, containing two incisor teeth of 
an animal closely allied to the Rhinoceros, found in Pennsylvania. Mr. Featherstonhaugh observes: “The 
mineral composition of this fragment gives it a very anomalous character, and is a circumstance entitled to 
the particular consideration of geologists. There is nothing of the nature of bone about it, except its 
form; the whole substance, the teeth included, being constituted of an aggregate of quartzose particles, 
and presenting the appearance, not of a gradual substitution by mineral snifltvation to osseous matter, but 
of a cast of part of a jaw and teeth formed git small quartzose grit, and giving a semi-translucency to the 
teeth, which is wanting to the more opaque jaw.’ 
Dr. Harlan, in his Medical and Physical Researches, refers to this specimen, page 268, and says : “ For our- 
selves, we are disposed to wait for further discoveries of this nature, previous to admitting the present specimen 
as part of our fossil fauna. The specimen is no less singular or interesting to geologists, as demonstrating 
the very close analogy of a mere dusus nature of the mineral kingdom, if it be nothing else, to a portion 
of the animal skeleton.” Dr. Harlan further remarks, in a note: ‘‘ The original specimen was sent to Lon- 
don, and the geologists who there examined it, considered it of too doubtful a character to be admitted as 
a fossil remnant.” 
De Blainville, in his Osteographie, page 172, in reference to this specimen, says: “Ce n’est pas le lieu 
de discuter ce point au moins fort contestable ; mais comme la piéce en nature fait aujourd’hui partie des 
collections du Muséum, nous pouvons assurer qu’elle ne resemble pas le moins du monde & un fragment 
de machoire de Rhinocéros, ni pour le corps de l’os, ni pour les dents prétendues. C’est sans doute une 
piece artificielle, une grossiére supercherie. I] est done véritablement 4 regretter qu’ on en ait hasardé et 
exprimé la pensée ; et que tous les catalogues de paléontologie aient inscrit une espéce de Rhinocéros fossile 
en Amérique, sans méme une expression de doute.” 
In addition, my friends Dr. I. Hays, and Mr. I. Lea, have informed me they had seen the specimen, and 
had always regarded it as a mere mineral fragment. 
* Osteog. Gen., Rhinoceros, 212. 
