Game Animals of India, etc. 



at a time, but information is required in regard to the 

 duration of the period of gestation and the frequency 

 with which births take place. 



It was an old idea that the hide of the Indian 

 rhinoceros was bullet-proof ; but this was erroneous 

 even in regard to such weapons as the military " brown 

 Bess." As trophies, sportsmen may preserve either 

 the entire head or the horn alone ; in addition to which 

 a shield-shaped piece of skin is frequently cut from the 

 under surface of the body, where it is thinner than 

 elsewhere, and kept as a memento of a successful 

 "shikar." Kuch-Behar is now one of the centres for 

 rhinoceros-shooting. Fine examples have been obtained 

 by the Maharaja himself ; and it was in this territory 

 that the Duke of Portland obtained specimens in 1882. 

 To shoot females is prohibited. 



THE SINGPHO RHINOCEROS 



In this place reference may be made to the occur- 

 rence of an unknown rhinoceros in the Singpho country, 

 concerning which the following notice by the present 

 writer appeared in the Field newspaper of July 23, 

 1905. According to native reports, there exists in the 

 Singpho country a rhinoceros of larger size than either 

 the two -horned Rhinoceros sumatrensis or the single- 

 horned R. sondaicus. For this animal the natives 

 have a name distinct from those which they apply 

 respectively to the two species just named, and they 

 further describe it as being of huge size, comparing it in 

 this respect with an elephant. Now the Singpho country, 

 which is the area marked in the Times Atlas as the dis- 

 trict inhabited by the Kachins or Singphos (Kakhyens), 

 is the tract lying on the headwaters of the Chindwin 

 River, this being separated from the north-eastern 

 extremity of the Assam Valley only by the Naga Hills 



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