1868.] DISTRIBUTION OF RHINOCEROS. 441 



to be quite true, that therefore the skull was that of an animal 

 which lived in Borneo. A collector in the Malayan archipelago 

 moving about from place to place, or a resident receiving curiosities 

 from all sources, would have many things in his stores collected at 

 various places ; but it would never follow that they were all to be 

 held to have been collected at the port from which they happened 

 to be shipped home. It would be going a long way back to the 

 infancy of collecting if we are to take the port of shipment as proof 

 of the locality, and most of all in that archipelago, where different 

 islands with different products lie so near to each other. 



Next, before we can trust even the statement that it had been 

 received direct from Borneo, we should require to know the name 

 and reputation of the dealer. There are dealers who know the im- 

 portance of accuracy in localities, and there are dealers who do not. 

 There are dealers (such as Mr. Stevens) on whose word the utmost 

 reliance can be placed, and there are others on whom none can be 

 placed. Of the latter there are some whose word cannot be trusted 

 without confirmation, simply because they are habitually careless ; 

 others are intentionally dishonest ; and, so far as dealers are con- 

 cerned, everything in this inquiry will depend on the character of 

 the individual. We shall have plenty of Rhinoceroses offered from 

 Borneo as soon as it is known that the locality will give them value. 

 Dr. Gray should therefore have given the name of the dealer as a 

 slight additional help to the expiscation of the truth ; and others 

 might then have been able to sift the statement, and trace the 

 origin and history of the particular skull in question. 



But, according to Dr. Gray, the skull has been found to belong to 

 a different species from the Javan one. This is putting the case 

 much too broadly. Dr. Gray says that it does ; that is all ; no one 

 else does. 



Not having seen the skull, and even if I had, not being com- 

 petent to form a judgment on its osteological characters, I offer no 

 opinion of my own on the value of Dr. Gray's species so far as based 

 ou them. But I have asked the opinion of one whose competence 

 to pronounce on such questions none can dispute, viz. Professor 

 Owen ; and he informs me that " in his opinion the osteological cha- 

 racters on which Dr. Gray founds his Tupirus laurillardii, Rhino- 

 ceros nasalis, &c. are of no specific value ; and in that opinion every 

 European zoologist is at one." I may add that although I do not 

 pretend to be qualified to give an opinion on the osteological cha- 

 racters, there is another point on which I consider that I am com- 

 petent to form an opinion ; and that is, the support the supposed 

 species receives from difference of locality. Now the argument tliat 

 the Rhinoceros is a native of Borneo because the skull " received 

 direct from Borneo" belongs to a different species from the Javan 

 Rhinoceros can only have weight if the Bornean type is confined to 

 Borneo. But it would appear that this is not the case. There is 

 another skull in the British Museum which Dr. Gray refers to this 

 new species, but it is marked as from Java. Dr. Gray, however, 

 thinks this is an error, and that it must have come from Borneo, 



