8G2.] A Memoir on tlie living Asiatic species of Rhinoceros. 151 



A Memoir on the living Asiatic species of Rhinoceros. — By 

 Edward Bltth. 



Among the investigations to which I devoted particular attention 

 during my late rambles in Burma, was the endeavour to corroborate 

 and confirm the statement of Heifer and others, that the three 

 known Asiatic species of Rhinoceros inhabited that region. In this 

 I succeeded, so far as the two insular species (viz. the one-horned 

 Rh. scxstdaicus and the two-horned Eh. stihatraktts) are con- 

 cerned ; for these prove to be the ordinary Rhinoceroses of the Indo- 

 Chinese region and continuous Malayan peninsula ; and I have rea- 

 son now to believe that they are the only Rhinoceroses of that great 

 range of territory ; the huge Rh. indictjs (so far as I can discover) 

 appearing to be pectiliar to the tarai region at the foot of the Hima- 

 layas and valley of the Brahmaputra (or province of Asam) ; the 

 Rhinoceros still common in the eastern Sundarbans, and also of the 

 Raj mahal hills in Bengal (where fast verging on extirpation), being 

 identical with that of Java and Borneo, in the great oriental archi- 

 pelago ; while the Asiatic two-horned species (Rh. sumateaistus) 

 appears to be more common than the lesser one-horned (Rh. son- 

 daicus) in the Indo-Chinese territories, — this animal extending north- 

 ward to the Ya-ma-doung range of mountains which separates Arakan 

 from Pegu, where Col. Yule observed it as high as the latitude of 

 Ramri island, and I have been assured by Major Ripley that one was 

 killed not long ago in the vicinity of Sandoway. What the parti- 

 cular species may have been that was hunted by the Mogul Emperor 

 Baber on the banks of the Indus cannot now be ascertained ; unless, 

 indeed, some bones of it may yet be recovered from the alluvium of 

 that river. It is remarkable that he compares its bowels to those 

 of a Horse ! A species is also stated by Duhalde to inhabit the 

 province of Quang-si in China, in lat. 15°. This is much more likely 

 to prove either Rh. scotdaicus or Rh. sumatrantjs, than the large 

 Rh. indicus. 



It is true that the late Dr. Theodore Cantor, in his ' Catalogue of 

 the mammalia of the Malayan peninsula' (J. A. S. XV, 263), asserts 

 that both Rh. indicus and Rh. sondaicus " seem to be numerous" 

 there ; but he does not mention that he had examined specimens ; 



