60 J. Cockburn — On tJie recent existence ofRhinoeeros indicus. [No. 1, 



in a promising locality, I strained every nerve to find a more perfect draw- 

 ing, walking twenty miles a day, and undergoing more fasting and privation 

 than the most enthusiastic votary of superstition. 



The question no longer admits of doubt for the animal in the draw- 

 ing now exhibited is as plainly a rhinoceros as the objects around it are 

 men. 



On the 17th of March I had the good fortune to be shown to the 

 Ghormangur cave which is well-lmown to the Kol and Gond wood-cutters 

 in the locality, though they were quite ignorant of the fact that scores 

 of other caves with paintings existed higher up the bluff. This cave 

 is called the Ghormangur or horse cave, and was said to contain 

 drawings of horses, but I was quite unable to find a single drawing of 

 the horse although this animal is not uncommonly depicted in other 

 caves. 



I may now proceed to a description of the sketch [PI. VII,] which is 

 a faithful tracing taken by brushing tissue paper with kerosine oil to render 

 it transparent securing it on the rock with pellets of wax and going over 

 the lines with a blue pencil. The kerosine oil afterwards readily evaporates 

 on exposure to the air. 



A group of six men have attacked a rhinoceros identified at present 

 with H. indicics* One of these the animal has tossed with his horn and 

 the position of the man sprawling in the air is comically like our own draw- 

 ings of people tossed. A man wearing an unusually large head-plume who 

 is in the rear has tried to draw the animal off by plunging his spear into its 

 hind- quarters. His attitude indicates that he has thrown his entire weight 

 into the thrust. 



In front of the enraged animal are two men, the lower of whom in an, 

 attitude highly indicative of action, has what appears to be a simple spear 

 of hardened wood with two supplementary barbs, levelled at the animal's 

 breast. The upper of these two figures has nothing remarkable about him, 

 his head-plume differs slightly, and he seems to be armed with the ordinary 

 triangular-headed spear with two supplementary barbs which is found 

 throughout these cave drawings. 



* The sentence in Jerdon's Mammals, p. 234 under B. sondaiciis *' One of these 

 species formerly existed on the hanks of the Indus where it was hunted hy the Em- 

 peror Baber," has heen usually considered hy subsequent writers to allude to 

 R. sondaicus. I am strongly inclined to think that the species hunted by Baber was 

 R. indicus. I am not aware what authority Jerdon had for saying that R. sondaicus was 

 found on the northern range of the Eajmahal Hills near the Ganges, but have a faint 

 recollection of seeing some such statement in an old Indian sporting publication. 



Ball questions the fact. It is, however, unfortunately but too true that neither 

 Blyth nor Jerdon knew R. sondaicus, Blyth having named a characteristic stufifed 

 specimen of R, indictis as R. sondaicus. Blyth Cat. M. M. A, S. No. 460 A. 



