THE WHITE RHINOCEROS 133 



bodies were hirsute instead of naked, then would 

 R. simus be truly white, and R. bicornis truly 

 black. Any person who has examined a front 

 horn of the white rhinoceros will admit that the 

 pale bristles sprouting from the base of the horn 

 are themselves half way in structure to hair. 

 Further, I have recently examined a front horn of 

 the allied extinct Rhinoceros antiquitatis, and this 

 strikingly resembled a white rhinoceros horn in 

 my possession. Both specimens were markedly 

 fibrous in texture, translucent, and had the posterior 

 margin sharply defined. At its base the fossil horn 

 was split up into bristly fibres, just like that of the 

 white rhinoceros of the present day : in section it 

 showed also exactly the hue which is seen in 

 its living congener, so that the horns of the two 

 species agreed remarkably in many ways. We 

 are thus led up to a most interesting speculation : 

 for since Pallas 1 described the frozen carcase of 

 the woolly rhinoceros which was found in Dec- 

 ember, 1771, on the banks of the Viloui River, 

 as covered with ash-coloured hair, one may retrace 

 the steps of evolution and fancifully picture the 

 living white rhinoceros of recent times clad in a 

 furry robe of silvery grey. Truly, in such a case, 

 would the white rhinoceros well deserve its name ! 

 Although first scientifically described in 1817, 

 Rhinoceros simus had been dimly known to Euro- 



i Pallas : Commentarii Aeademiae Petersburgicae. 



