162 A Memoir on the living Asiatic Species of Rhinoceros. [No. 2, 



I found these occasionally of great depth and extent." In Bengal, 

 I believe that the identical species is found in the Sundarbans, and 

 also (formerly, at least,) in the Kajmahal hills at all elevations ; but 

 it has hitherto been universally mistaken for Rh. indicus, a species 

 which may inhabit the same localities, — only that now remains to be 

 ascertained, as also if Rh. sondaicus extends its range to the region 

 tenanted by the other. All evidence at present attainable points to 

 the opposite conclusion. 



So long ago as in 1838, the late Dr. Heifer remarked that — " The 

 Tenasserim provinces seem to be a convenient place for this genus; 

 for I dare to pronounce almost positively," he then wrote, " that the 

 three known Asiatic species occur within their range. The Rh. in- 

 dictjs being found in the northern part of these provinces, in that 

 high range bordering on Zimmay called the Elephant-tail mountain ; 

 the Rh. sondaicus, on the contrary, occupies the southernmost parts ; 

 while the two-horned Rh. sumatkanus is to be found through- 

 out the extent of the territories from the 17° to the 10° of latitude. 

 In character the Rh. sondaicus seems to be the mildest, and can be 

 easily domesticated ; the powerful Indian Rhinoceros is the shyest ; 

 and the double-horned is the wildest." (J". A. 8. VII, 861.) Ma- 

 son (in 1850) remarked that " the common single-horned Rhinoceros 

 [sondaicus] is very abundant. The double-horned is not uncom- 

 mon in the southern provinces :" and then he alludes to the alleged 

 i fire-eater' of the Burmans, supposing that to be sondaicus, as dis- 

 tingished from " the common single-horned" kind, which he thought 

 was indicus. Very decidedly, I consider that the alleged existence 

 of the great sub-Himalayan indicus in Bengal, the Indo-Chinese 

 region, and Malayan peninsula, remains to be proved ; the broad and 

 narrow types of skull of sondaicus having, I suspect, been mistaken 

 for indices and sondaicus respectively. That the real species de- 

 noted by these names was so early discriminated, I opine is mainly 

 due to the accident of sondaicus having been first obtained in 

 Java, which induced the suspicion of its being probably different 

 from the only then recognised continental species, inhabiting Upper 

 India ; likewise to the accident of the Paris museum containing a 

 particularly fine skull of the true indicus, which (as before remark- 

 ed) is probably that of the individual figured in the Menagerie du 

 Museum a" Hist. A T at. 



