452 PROF. W. H. FLOWER ON THE CRANIAL AND j May 1 G, 



individual peculiarity due to age, it is an important character. A 

 specimen in the Brussels Museum is in an exactly similar con- 

 dition. 



On comparing these skulls, can any character be found to indicate 

 that they belong to more than one species? Of seven of them I 

 have little hesitation in saying that the differences of proportion 

 and general configuration which occur among them may well be 

 considered within the limits of individual variation ; but of one, 

 that from Pegu, in the British Museum, No. 1401 a, I am doubtful. 

 There are differences in the conformation of the base of the skull, 

 and in the greater length and more compressed form of the post- 

 glenoid process, which separate it from the others ; but without 

 further evidence of correlated differences in other parts of the 

 organization, or without further specimens showing the same 

 characters, I should not feel justified in considering these differences 

 specific, knowing that the development of processes for the 

 attachment of muscles are among the most variable of characters. 

 I merely indicate them to direct the attention of any one who may 

 have an opportunity of examining the skull of R. lasiotis, or of any 

 fresh examples brought to this country, to compare them with this 

 specimen, especially as Pegu is the most northern locality (and 

 therefore nearest to Chittagong) of any of the skulls of this form of 

 Rhinoceros. The three Sumatran specimens from Sir Stamford 

 Raffles all differ somewhat in size and form ; but, allowing for age, 

 the Malacca specimen at the British Museum (R. niyer, Gray) does 

 not appear to differ materially from them. 



Of African rhinoceroses, the British Museum possesses a fine 

 series of eleven skulls, and the College of Surgeons five. 



The two distinct types, exemplified by R. simus, Burchell, and 

 It. bicornis, Linn., are recognizable at a glance. The larger size of 

 tbe former, together with the depressed, spatulated form of the front 

 end of the mandible, distinguish it at once. It is worthy of note 

 that though the front of the jaws, especially the mandible, of the 

 latter, are so much more reduced and narrow, the incisor teeth are 

 better developed and more persistent. In a young R. bicornis, from 

 Abyssinia, in which all the milk-molars are in place and worn, there 

 are rudimentary incisors (}) in both jaws*; but in two specimens 

 of R. simus of younger age, in which the milk-molars are quite un- 

 worn, and the last slid concealed in its alveolus, there is no trace of 

 incisors ; so that, as far as this character is concerned, R. simus is 



th.it precisely the same ci rem n stance was recorded, though very briefly, in a 

 description of the viscera of a rhinoceros sent from Sumatra by Sir S. Baffles, 

 of which Sir E. Home says (Philosophical Transactions, 1821, parti, p. 271), 

 "the small intestines measured fifty-four feet six inches; the valvulae conni- 

 ventes are continued nearly through the whole extent, and in general circular, 

 although not all so." 



* In a specimen in the Museum of the College of Surgeons, figured in Owen's 

 ' Odontography,' there are two incisors on each side in the mandible : and these 

 sometimes persisl to adult age, as shown by Dr. Gray, P. Z. S. 1869, p. 225. 

 This distinction between ff. simus and R. bicornis was also noticed by Duvernoy 

 in the young specimens in the Paris Museum, 



