386 EXTINCT AND VANISHING MAMMALS 



forests between the province of Luang-Prabang and the Verne military terri- 

 tory. The writer states that during 1924 he located a band of rhinos in the 

 province of Sam-Nua where formerly they abounded. . . . Fifty years ago 

 these animals were numerous in the Annamite Chain and in the forests of 

 Nord-Annam and Haut-Laos. They have been destroyed by Meos, a 

 mountain people who have immigrated from China in recent times. . . . The 

 value of the horns was so great that they figured in the tribute sent by 

 the King of Luang-Prabang every year to the Emperor of China and the 

 Emperor of Annam. At the present time in the royal marriages of Luang- 

 Prabang a rhino horn frequently figures in the dowry of the young princess. . . . 



Professeur Bourret, . . . writing from Hanoi is certain ... of sondaicus 

 as far north as Tonkin where it has recently been killed in the province of 

 Son La. . . . 



Bourret maintains that sondaicus . . . has been killed in La Nha, also at 

 Bien-Hoa at Cap St. Jacques not far from Saigon, in the south of Cambodia. 

 Also in the region of Xieng-Khouang in Tran Ninh, North-east Laos .... He 

 estimates that perhaps 30 of the one-horned rhinos have been killed in Indo- 

 China by European hunters since 1900. About 1900, two skulls were sent home 

 from Bien-Hoa to the Paris Museum, these appear to be the only specimens 

 of sondaicus from Indo-China in any Museum. 



"M. J. Loupy, Commissaire du Gouvernment at Luangprabang in 

 Laos, from enquiries from native authorities, thinks that no rhino 

 has been met with during the last five years in the Kingdom of 

 Luangprabang" (Loch, 1937, p. 144) . 



Malay States. According to Ridley (1895, p. 161), the common 

 rhinoceros of the Malay Peninsula "appears to be J?. sondaicus. It 

 frequents the hill-jungles, ascending to 4,000 feet altitude .... 

 As the jungle gets cleared, it wanders often into the low, open 

 country, apparently losing its way. It is a quiet, inoffensive beast." 



"In 1921 it was known that two animals of this rare species were 

 round about Changkat Jong not far away from Chikkus, and one of 

 them was shot by a planter" (Times of Malaya and Planters' and 

 Miners' Gazette, Ipoh, February 1, 1932) . 



"In Perak, lower Malay Peninsula, . . . two individuals have 

 been killed in the last thirty years, the mounted heads of which are 

 now in the Selangor Museum" (Barbour and Allen, 1932, p. 146). 

 "Both these animals seem to have been extremely savage and given 

 to unprovoked attacks. The Pinjih beast had been the terror of its 

 valley from long before the British Occupation (1874)." (Kloss, 

 1927, p. 208.) 



Comyn-Platt (19376, p. 48) writes: 



Undoubtedly the rhinoceros is having the most serious time, and I fail 

 to see how his existence can be much further prolonged. After all trade 

 will always defeat sentiment in the long run, and as the Chinese are con- 

 vinced that rhinoceros horn is a most valuable aphrodisiac and will pay as 

 much as three or four hundred dollars to get it, can one be surprised if this 

 animal is being hunted to extinction? And this is happening in other countries 

 besides Malaya. 



