382 EXTINCT AND VANISHING MAMMALS 



and as specimens have not been seen by Europeans, we have now no 

 means of ascertaining the truth. 



"In the Sunderbans delta . . . the last tracks of the animal were 

 seen . . . about 1887 so that by 1890 it had probably died out." 

 (Loch, 1937, p. 132.) 



In Bengal the former range included the Jalpaiguri and Chitta- 

 gong Forests. Extinction was due to poaching. (Senior Conservator 

 of Forests, Bengal, in litt., September, 1937) . 



FIG. 41. Javan Rhinoceros (Rhinoceros sondaicus) 



Its status in Assam is discussed by Milroy (1934, p. 102) : "It 

 is on record that Messrs. Rowland Ward identified the head and 

 shield from a rhino shot by a Forest Officer in the Bengal Dooars 

 as belonging to this species, and it would be strange if it did not 

 also occur in the contiguous Goalpara Reserves and Monas Sanc- 

 tuary. Pairs of smaller, less truculent, and definitely less armoured 

 rhino can be put up in the Sanctuary and these, if not cases of R. 

 unicornis pairing while still far from mature, must be specimens of 

 R. sondaicus" 



Loch (1937, p. 132) quotes Pollock (1900) as follows: 



"It is fairly plentiful on the left bank [of the Brahmaputra] 

 South of Goalparah, where I have killed it. 



"I may here mention about them in Assam . . . that I shot there 

 forty-four to my own gun, and probably saw some sixty others 

 slain, and lost wounded fully as many as I killed." 



On this Loch comments (p. 133) : "The latter paragraph, no 

 doubt, refers to all species of rhino. Colonel F. T. Pollock spent 

 seven years, in the '60s, in Assam, and was an accurate observer and 

 keen shikari. If one European can, in seven years, account for so 



