ORDER PERISSODACTYLA : ODD-TOED UNGULATES 395 



shikaries. The record flood of July, 1929, drove the rhino up into the hills 

 and very few have been allowed by the Lushais to return. 



"Whether this species continues to exist in India proper is a matter 

 of speculation. It has probably been exterminated or is on the verge 

 of extinction from this country. Probably does not survive in 

 Assam." (Bombay Natural Histopy Society, in Hit., December, 

 1936.) 



Burma. "While at Bhamo in Upper Burmah, I was informed by 

 an intelligent native that two-horned Rhinocerotes are found in the 

 Mogonny district, which is close to the confines of Assam, and as 

 far north as the twenty-sixth degree of north latitude" (J. Anderson, 

 1872, p. 129). 



Peacock (1933, pp. 72-73) gives the following account: 



In the days before the advent of fire-arms the Sumatran rhinoceros must 

 have been fairly common throughout Burma. Even now it is thinly dis- 

 tributed near the watersheds of most of the important hill-systems from 

 Myitkyina in the north to Victoria Point in the extreme south of the 

 Province. . . . 



The Sumatran rhinoceros has been so heavily poached within the past 

 twenty years that there are now vast stretches of suitable evergreen forest 

 from which it has been completely exterminated. It may still be located in 

 parts of Myitkyina, in the angle between the Chindwin and the Uyu Rivers, 

 in the Arakan Hills as far south as Bassein, in parts of the Pegu Yomas, in 

 parts of the Salween and Tenasserim drainages and in a few other remote 

 hill tracts. . . . 



The only area in which rhinoceros is now fairly common is the Shwe-u- 

 daung Game Sanctuary in the Mogok Subdivision of the Katha District. 

 There are about ten rhinoceros in this sanctuary but, in default of adequate 

 protection, I should not be surprised to hear that they had been decimated 

 by some enterprising gang of poachers. The perpetuation of this species 

 undoubtedly depends on the proper protection of this sanctuary which, hitherto, 

 has been guarded only by the occasional visits of one or two forest subordi- 

 nates and a peculiar superstition to the effect that the sanctuary is occupied 

 by wood-spirits which are intolerant of poaching. 



The blood and horn of the Sumatran rhinoceros have a very high medicinal 

 value in the imagination of Chinamen, Burmans and tribesmen indigenous 

 to Burma. One gathers that such parts of a rhinoceros have the properties of a 

 very potent aphrodisiac. An average horn, about 8 inches in length, is worth 

 about 1000 rupees, and the blood, when dried, is valued at its own weight in 

 silver. Other parts of the rhinoceros have a lesser value but, in the extreme 

 south of Burma, the inhabitants find a medicinal use even for the urine and 

 dung. An animal, the parts of which are invested with such value, is bound 

 to be mercilessly hunted, and this has been the fate of the Sumatran rhinoceros 

 in Burma. 



Siam. "I may state that both the one-horned and two-horned 

 rhinoceros (R. sondaicus and R. sumatrensis) are to be found in 

 Siam but, owing to the hunting by the hill tribes both are now 

 extremely rare, so much so that some five years ago the killing of 

 them was prohibited by the government. Their extermination was 



