402 Dr. C. W. Andrews — Fossil Mammalia froin Egypt. 



Eggenburg. From the latter no rhinoceros remains are recorded^ 

 but from the former several species seem to have been obtained. 

 Of these only one, Aceratherium aurelianense, has been described and 

 figured.^ Gervais, on the authority of the Abbe Bourgeois,- has given 

 a list of five species from the Sables de I'Orleanais, but none of these 

 seem to be true Burdigalien forms, some being Middle Miocene, 

 others Upper Oligocene. More recently Mermier ^ has described and 

 figured a fine skull and mandible of an Aceratherium from the 

 Burdigalien of Pont-de-Manne in Eoyans (Drome), South-Eastern 

 France. Of this species, to which the name A. platyodon has been 

 given, nothing beyond the skull and mandible has been described 

 and figured, so that it is not possible to compare the Egyptian 

 specimens with it. Not improbably, when further remains are 

 obtained from Moghara it will be found that this Egyptian rhinoceros 

 is identical with A. platyodon, A. aurelianense, or with one of the 

 other species which actually occur in the Sables de I'Orleanais, but 

 seem to have been so far confused with forms from other horizons. 

 The extreme hardness and generally good state of preservation of 

 the Egyptian bones render it highly probable that excavations at 

 Moghara would yield very complete and valuable specimens, and it is 

 to be hoped that such a systematic search may sooner or later be made. 



The atlas is somewhat smaller than that of any recent rhinoceros, 

 but at the same time it is relatively longer ; moreover, the cups for 

 the occipital condyles are much deeper and are separated by a deeper 

 notch, and the surfaces for articulation with the centrum of the axis 

 are inclined to one another at a more acute angle than in any 

 rhinoceros atlas with which I have been able to compare it. The 

 transverse processes are much broken at their extremities, which 

 seem to have been expanded to a considerable degree ; near their 

 bases they are perforated by a very oblique vertebrarterial canal, the 

 ventral opening of which is near their middle point, the dorsal near 

 their anterior border just external to the outer angle of the articular 

 surface for the axis. A similar canal is seen in the atlas of some 

 specimens of B. bicornis, but is absent in others, so that it cannot 

 be regarded as a character of much importance. The neural arch 

 is narrow from before back, and is perforated by a large foramen for 

 the first spinal nerve ; the impressions of the nuchal ligament are not 

 strongly marked, probably indicating that compared with that of the 

 recent horned rhinoceroses the skull was light. 



The only atlas vertebra of any of the older forms of rhinoceros 

 with which I have been able to compare this specimen is that of 

 B. schleirmacJieri, described and figured by Kaup, and of which 

 there is a cast in the British Museum. From this atlas our 

 specimen differs as widely and in the same points as from those 

 of recent forms. 



'^Nouel, " Memoire sur un nouveau Eliinoceros fossile," pis. i-v: Mem. de la 

 Societe d' agriculture, sciences, belles-lettros, et arts d'Orleans, viii, 1866, p. 241. 



* Gervais : "Zool. et Pal. generales," ser. i (1867-9), p. 157. 



^ Mermier, "Sur la decouverte d'une nouvelle espece i^ Acer other ium ' ^ : Ann. 

 Soc. Linn. Lyon., torn, xlii (1895), p. 163. Also, op. cit., torn, sliii (1896), pp. 225 

 and 257. 



