376 



EXTINCT AND VANISHING MAMMALS 



the tail; general color uniformly blackish gray, with more or less 

 pink on the margins of the folds (Lydekker, 1900, pp. 21-22) . 



India. "In the history of Timur-bec, it is described how in 1398 

 on the frontier of Kashmir, Timur hunted and killed many rhi- 

 noceroses. In the memoirs of Baber it is described how in about 

 1519 he hunted the rhinoceros in bush country near the Indus. And 

 in the book of Sidi Ali dated 1554 it is stated that rhinos were seen 

 near the Kotal Pass, west of Peshawar. 



FIG. 40. Great Indian Rhinoceros (Rhinoceros unicornis) 



"These references are of interest, for they show that in old times 

 the rhinoceros was plentiful and further, ranged over a great portion 

 of India, whereas it is now approaching extinction." (Hobley, 1931, 

 p. 19.) 



"Not improbably . . . the rhinoceroses found till about the year 

 1850 in the grass-jungles of the Rajmehal Hills, in Bengal, belonged 

 to the present species. Now, however, this huge animal has re- 

 treated almost, if not entirely, to the eastward of the Tista valley, 

 on the borders of Kuch Behar; its main strongholds being the great 

 grass-jungles of that province and of Assam." (Lydekker, 1900, 

 p. 23.) 



Shebbeare (1935, pp. 1229-1231) gives the following account: 



Though this rhinoceros is becoming alarmingly rare everywhere, Nepal and 

 Assam are better off than Bengal, where its habitat is restricted to a few 

 places in the Duars and Cooch Behar State. Here the last main stronghold 

 of the species is a tract of high grass savannah along the Torsa river, 

 stretching from the foothills of Bhutan, through the Duars into Cooch Behar. 

 It is a narrow strip, not more than 40 miles from the north to the south 

 and, at its widest, four miles from east to west perhaps 50 or 60 square 

 miles. Outside this tract the few scattered colonies can perhaps muster a 



