414 THE COMMON INDIAN RHINOCEROS. 



of the ox, which consist of a bony core from the skull, encased 

 in a horny sheath. The nasal horn of the rhinoceros is a solid 

 structure, composed of agglutinated fibres, analogous to hair, 

 and much resembling those into which whalebone is so easily 

 separable. The horny sheath in the ox, goat, or antelope, is 

 indeed also thus composed, but it covers a bony process from 

 the skull itself. Here there is no bone, the whole mass being 

 secreted, fibre by fibre, from the skin, to which it is firmly 

 attached this being as firmly attached to the nasal bones, 

 so that the horn is almost, if not quite, immoveable. Burchell's 

 theory respecting horns in general, appears to be reduceable to 

 the following statement. The pores of the skin secrete a corneous 

 matter. When the pores are separate the matter forms hairs, 

 having an insertion not deeper than the skin, and growing by 

 the addition of new matter at their base. When the pores are 

 confluent and in a line, the matter forms nails, claws, hoofs. 

 When the pores are confluent, and in a ring, the matter fur- 

 nishes the horns of animals of the ruminating order ; and when 

 confluent, over the whole of a circular area, the result is the 

 formation of solid horns, like the rhinoceros's horn, which 

 grows from the skin only, and in the same manner as the hair. 

 It is not at all extraordinary, therefore, that the rhinoceros 

 should possess the power of moving its horn, although by no 

 means so loose as some writers have supposed."* 



The rhinoceros is more rapid in its movements than its com- 

 paratively clumsy and massive appearance would, at first sight, 

 induce one to expect. " The Onamese," Lieutenant White tells 

 us, " speak with great energy of its irresistible strength and 

 velocity. Speaking of this animal one day to the viceroy, he 

 observed, ' You now see him here before you, in Saigon 5' and, 

 snapping his fingers, ' now he is in Canjeo.' However hyper- 

 bolical these accounts appear to be, we may yet infer from 

 them, that the rhinoceros can exert great strength and speed." f 



" In a state of nature, the rhinoceros leads a calm but indo- 



* The Menageries (1840), vol. iii. p. 11. 



f Voyage to Cochin- China in 181920, (1824). 



