WHITE RHINOCEROS 37 



African race of this species, with a really fine front horn, which has 

 ever come under my observation. Indeed, the only other photographs 

 I know are two (of a single individual) published in the Zoological 

 Society's Proceedings for 1903, pp. 233 and 234. In the second 

 place, the photograph here reproduced (fig. 13) is remarkable as 

 representing a specimen with practically only a single horn. In the 

 original album the photograph is labelled Rhinoceros a une corne, and 

 although examination with a lens reveals the presence of a minute 

 tubercle representing a second horn, the description is practically 

 correct. The single (front) horn is about a yard in length. At least 

 two of the older writers on African natural history refer to a native 

 belief in the existence of single-horned rhinoceroses. In 1838 Sir 

 Andrew Smith, for instance, in his Illustrations of the Zoology of South 

 Africa (vol. i., description of plate i.), alludes to the existence of such 

 a belief; but it is somewhat difficult to determine whether the accounts 

 referred to are founded on fact or are of purely fictitious origin. 

 Again, in 1848, a French writer, Mr. F. Fresnel, contributed a paper 

 to the Comptes Rendus of the Paris Academy of Sciences (vol. xxvi. 

 p. 281) entitled " Sur 1'existence d'une espece unicorne de rhinoceros 

 dans la partie tropicale de 1'Afrique." The reports alluded to in this 

 communication relate to the Lake Tchad district and the White Nile, 

 but there is the same difficulty as in the last in deciding as to what 

 value should be attached to them. If based on fact, they may refer 

 to the northern race of the white rhinoceros, of which, as pointed 

 out by Sir Andrew Smith in the work cited, two horns, now in 

 the British Museum, were brought from the neighbourhood of Lake 

 Tchad by Messrs. Denham and Clapperton in the first quarter of 

 last century. 



In regard to the variation in the length of the posterior horn in 

 specimens of the white rhinoceros which came under his own observa- 

 tion, Mr. F. C. Selous states in the account reproduced below that 

 this appendage may range from a horn of a couple of feet in 

 length to a mere hump two or three inches high. The animal 

 represented in Mr. HeYitte's photograph may accordingly be regarded 

 as representing the extreme stage in the degeneration of the second 

 horn, and is in no wise entitled to recognition as a distinct race, still 

 less a species. 



Early in 1908 Major P. H. G. Powell-Cotton presented to the 

 Natural History branch of the British Museum the skull and horns 

 of a male white rhinoceros killed by himself in the Lado district. 

 The skull indicates an immature animal, the last upper molar tooth 



