xX CHARACTERS OF RA/JNOCEROS 25 
largely to escape the Tiger, its most formidable foe in those regions 
of the world. Its quickness of senses enables it also to slip away 
with rapidity. It can proceed at a great pace when disturbed, 
and can readily push its way through obstacles. The young 
anunal, like that of the American species, is dark brown with 
yellowish spots. It is stated by Mr. H. N. Ridley that the 
young animal lies during the hot part of the day under bushes, 
in which situation “its coat is so exactly like a patch of ground 
flecked with sunlight that it is quite invisible.” It is interesting 
to note that here, as with some other animals, it is the young 
that are especially protected by such mechanisms. Moreover, 
some of the spots are round and some are more elongated, so 
that the resemblance to spots of sunlight which come in a direct 
and in a slanting direction is greatly increased. Even the 
colours of the adult are not so conspicuous when it is in its 
native haunts as might be supposed. The breaking up of the 
eround colour into tracts of two different colours prevent it from 
striking the eye so plainly as if it were of one colour through- 
out. “When lying down during the day it exactly resembles a 
erey, boulder, and as it often lives near the rocky streams of the 
hill jungles, it is really nearly as invisible then as it was when it 
was speckled.” ! 
Fam. 3. Rhinocerotidae.—This family is to be distinguished 
from the preceding by a number of characters, which though not 
universal are general. In the first place, there are commonly 
horns, or a horn, consisting of what appears to be an agglomera- 
tion of hair-like structures fixed upon a roughened patch of bone 
on the surface of the nasals. The incisors are diminished or 
defective, and the upper canines are often wanting. The molars 
and premolars are alike. The fore-feet are four- or three-toed, 
but are functionally tridactyle; the hind-feet are three-toed. 
The skeleton in this family is massive, and the limbs relatively 
short. The skull, as in the Tapirs, has a confluent orbit and 
temporal fossa. The upper lip is generally more or less pre- 
hensile ; the body is as a rule—to which the Pleistocene Hairy 
Rhinoceros js of course an exception—rather sparsely covered 
with hair. In this feature the Rhinocerotidae contrast both with 
the Tapiridae and the Equidae. The family in reality contains 
but one existing genus, though three have been instituted, viz. 
-1 Natural Science, vi. 1895, p. 161. 
