RHINOCEROS. 473 



Skin naked except on the tail and ears, and on the sides studded 

 with convex tubercles, half an inch to an inch or rather more in 

 diameter, the largest on the buttocks and thighs and on the 

 shoulders. Skin of body divided into great shields by folds before 

 and behind each shoulder, and before each thigh ; the folds behind 

 the shoulders and before the thighs continuous across the back, 

 those in front of the shoulders not joined across the back but turn- 

 ing backwards and lost above the shoulder. There are also great 

 folds round the neck, others below the shoulders and thigh-shields 

 and behind the buttocks, so that the tail lies in a groove. Epidermis 

 on limbs forming small polygonal scales. The head is higher and 

 altogether larger than in other Asiatic species. Incisors generally 

 | ; inner lower incisors small, outer large, pointed. Skull very high, 

 mesopterygoid fossa narrow ; hinder margin of bony palate simply 

 concave. Horn well developed in both sexes. 



Colour blackish grey throughout. 



Dimensions. Height at shoulder 5 feet to 5 feet 9 inches. A large 

 male measured : height 5 ft. 9 in., length from nose to root of tad 

 10 ft. 6 in., tail 2 ft. 5 in., girth 9 ft. 8 in. (Kinloch). Length of horn 

 rarely exceeding a foot. Basal length of a skull 23 inches, zygo- 

 matic breadth 15-3. 



Distribution. At the present day the great Indian rhinoceros 

 is almost restricted to the Assam plain, and it is very rare, if it 

 exists, west of the Teesta river. Twenty to thirty years ago it was 

 still common in the Sikhim Terai, and not many years previously it 

 was found along the base of the Himalayas in Nepal and as far west 

 as Eohilcund. Up to about 1850, or rather later, some rhinoceroses 

 inhabited the grass-jungles on the Ganges at the north end of the 

 Eajmehal hills, and were, I think, probably R. unicornis. Formerly 

 this animal was extensively distributed in the Indian Peninsula. 

 It was common in the Punjab as far west as Peshawar in the time 

 of the Emperor Baber (1505-1530). Semifossilized remains of it 

 have been found in the Banda district, North-west Provinces, and 

 near Madras; and its co-existence with several mammals now 

 extinct, the Indian hippopotamus for one, is shown by its occur- 

 rence in the Pleistocene beds of the Nerbudda Valley. 



Habits. The great Indian rhinoceros is a denizen of the grass- 

 jungles, tracts of grass from 8 to 20 feet high, that cover so much 

 of the uncultivated portions of the North-Indian alluvial plains. 

 It appears never to ascend the hills ; it has a distinct preference 

 for swampy ground, and is fond of rolling in mud. Though each 

 animal is solitary as a rule, several are often found in the same 

 patch of jungle. 



Despite its bulk and strength, this rhinoceros is as a rule a quiet 

 inoffensive animal, the stories of its ferocity and of its deadly 

 enmity to the elephant, that were copied from the not very veracious 

 pages of Captain Williamson's 'Oriental Field Sports' into European 

 works on natural history, being fables. A rhinoceros when 

 wounded or driven about will, however, sometimes charge home, 

 though this is an exception. When it does attack, this species 



