RHINOCEROS TICHORHINUS. 353 



observed on any living species ; and he asks whether it 

 does not indicate the Rhinoceros of the Lena to have been 

 an aboriginal of the temperate latitudes of Asia ? 



It must not be inferred from the observations which 

 Pallas was able to make on the hair of the legs of the 

 frozen Rhinoceros, that its body was less warmly clad than 

 that of the Mammoth. No naturalist, unacquainted with 

 the woolly covering of the arctic Musk Ox, could have 

 inferred it from an inspection of the legs only, which are 

 clothed with short, dull, brownish- white hair, unmixed 

 with wool. 



Of the subsequent discoveries of carcasses of Rhinoceroses 

 in the frozen soil of Siberia, I can only learn that they 

 prove the hide to have been destitute of those singular 

 folds which characterize that part in the existing one- 

 horned Rhinoceros ; and that one of the horns, probably 

 the first or nasal horn, has been obtained, which measures 

 nearly three feet in length, and thus confirms the deduc- 

 tions of Cuvier from the osseous septum supporting the 

 nasal bones, as to the size of this formidable weapon : it is 

 preserved in the Museum of Natural History at Moscow, 



Although the molar teeth of the Rhinoceros tichor- 

 hinus present a specific modification of structure, it is not 

 such as to support the inference that it could have better 

 dispensed with succulent vegetable food than its existing 

 congeners ; and we must suppose, therefore, that the well- 

 clothed individuals who might extend their wanderings 

 northwards during a brief but hot Siberian summer, 

 would be compelled to migrate southward to obtain their 

 subsistence during winter. Plants might then have existed 

 with longer periods of foliation than those which now 

 grow. This, at least, is a less extreme hypothesis than 

 the sudden change from a tropical to an arctic climate, 



2 A 



