RHINOCEEOS. 79 



RHIIVOCEROS, Linnaeus. 



The existing species of RJiinoceros are confined to Africa and Asia, and the 

 Islands of Java and Sumatra. A vast quantity of remains of extinct species have 

 been discovered in Great Britain, the continent of Europe, Siberia, and the Hima- 

 layas, but, until the region of Nebraska had been visited, no traces of the genus 

 had been found in America.^ 



The number of extinct species which have been proposed, frequently upon the 

 slightest characters, is so great, that the criticism of De Blainville upon their 

 authors appears to be quite just: "Qui semblent consid^rer les os comme des in- 

 dividus, comme des masses minerales, sans considerations biologiques ou physio- 

 logiques ; en sorte que les especes se creent chez eux, pour ainsi dire, au compas."^ 



Among the fossil remains discovered at Nebraska, are those of two species of 

 Mhinoceros, certainly different from any of those found in other parts of the globe. 

 The larger of the two species, as indicated by an almost entire skull, was nearly 

 three-fourths the size of the Rhinoceros indicihs, or it was about the size of the 

 Rhinoceros minutus, Cuvier, which is regarded by De Blainville as a small variety 

 of the Rhinoceros incisivus. The other was less than two-thirds the size of the for- 

 mer species, and is therefore the smallest Rhinoceros which has ever yet been indi- 

 cated. 



^ In the Monthly American Journal of Geology, etc., 1831, p. 10, the editor, G-. W. Featherstonhaugh, 

 has given a description of what he considered to be the fragment of a jaw, containing two incisor teeth of 

 an animal closely allied to the Rhinoceros, found in Pennsylvania. Mr. Featherstonhaugh observes: "The 

 mineral composition of this fragment gives it a very anomalous character, and is a circumstance entitled to 

 the particular consideration of geologists. There is nothing of the nature of bone about it, except its 

 form; the whole substance, the teeth included, being constituted of an aggregate of quartzose particles, 

 and presenting the appearance, not of a gradual substitution by mineral infiltration to osseous matter, but 

 of a cast of part of a jaw and teeth formed of. small quartzose grit, and giving a semi-translucency to the 

 teeth, which is wanting to the more opaque jaw." 



Dr. Harlan, in his Medical and Physical Researches, refers to this specimen, page 268, and says : " For our- 

 selves, we are disposed to wait for further discoveries of this nature, previous to admitting the present specimen 

 as part of our fossil fauna. The specimen is no less singular or interesting to geologists, as demonstrating 

 the very close analogy of a mere lums nalurse of the mineral kingdom, if it be nothing else, to a portion 

 of the animal skeleton." Dr. Harlan further remarks, in a note : " The original specimen was sent to Lon- 

 don, and the geologists who there examined it, considered it of too doubtful a character to be admitted as 

 a fossil remnant." 



De Blainville, in his Osteographie, page 172, in reference to this specimen, says : " Ce n'est pas le lieu 

 de disouter ce point au moins fort contestable; mais comme la pi6ee en nature fait aujourd'hui partie des 

 collections du Museum, nous pouvons assurer qu'elle ne resemble pas le moins du monde ^ un fragment 

 de machoire de Rhinoceros, ni pour le corps de I'os, ni pour les dents pr^tendues. C'est sans doute une 

 pi6ce artificielle, une grossi^re supercherie. II est done v^ritablement -a regretter qu' on en ait hasard^ et 

 exprim6 la pens^e ; et que tous les catalogues de pal^ontologie aient inscrit une espfece de Rhinoc&os fossile 

 en Amerique, sans meme une expression de doute." 



In addition, my friends Dr. I, Hays, and Mr. I. Lea, have informed me they had seen the specimen, and 

 had always regarded it as a mere mineral fragment. 



° Osteog. Gen., Rhinoceros, 212. 



