3862.] A Memoir on tlie living Asiatic Species of Rhinoceros. 365 



less rather improbable, that such an animal as the Tennu may have 

 escaped observation there even to this time. But it might not ex- 

 tend its range into the peninsula (as in the instance of the large 

 Siamang Gibbon, which is peculiar to Sumatra) ; and not very much 

 has been accomplished in the investigation of the zoology of the 

 great island of Sumatra since the time of Raffles. At all events, 

 I think the present opportunity a meet one to recal the subject to 

 notice. 



Baron Cuvier long ago remarked, I think in his Legons dans VAna- 

 tomie Comparee, that even then it was not probable that any more 

 existing large quadrupeds remained to be discovered : and it is wor- 

 thy of notice that no remarkable genus of large quadruped has been 

 since brought to light, though additional species have been discrimi- 

 nated of several of the old genera. The small Hippopotamus libe- 

 bjensis of the late Dr, Morton is scarcely an exception ; although 

 since raised to generic rank by Dr. Leidy, by the name Chcekop- 

 sis.* Of the three genera containing the most bulky of existing land 

 quadrupeds, additional species have been distinguished ; though, for 

 the most part, they may not yet be universally accepted. Of Ele- 

 phas, the E. sumatranixs, Temminck and Schlegel (to which Sir 

 J. Emerson Tennent refers the Ceylon Elephantf ) . Of Rhinoceros, a 



* Journ. TUlacl. Acad., n. s., I, 231, IT, 207. 



f The grinders of Elephas sumatkanus are said to be intermediate in form 

 to those of the Indian and African species ; and I have just purchased a pair 

 of table-weights, formed each of a thick horizontal section of an Elephant's 

 molar-tooth, which seem to me to be of this species. The little boxes formed of 

 sections of Elephant's molars, which ai'e commonly brought from Galle, are (so 

 far as I have seen) of the Indian species ; but these are not necessarily from 

 (Singhalese individuals. It is worthy of remark, however, that whilst among the 

 Elephants of Sumatra and Borneo fine tuskers would appear to be common (and 

 the ivory is an article of export from both islands, as I am assured by a gentle- 

 man who has collected the article in Borneo), they are exceedingly rare among 

 the Elephants of Ceylon ; where, nevertheless, it has been suggested that tusk- 

 ers are so much sought after that they are seldom permitted to develope their 

 ivories. 



With reference to Sir J. E. Tennent's speculation regarding the former con- 

 tinuity of land between Sumatra and Ceylon — and Africa, of which the inter- 

 mediate character of the Elephas sumatranus is one of his presumptive proofs, 

 it may be remarked that the two-homed Rhinoceros sum atr anus (with its only 

 slight skin-folds) interposes a link between the two-horned and smooth-skinned 

 African and the single-homed and mail-clad Asian species ; but (not to allude 

 further to the alleged existence of a single-horned African species) the presence 

 of the second horn in Rh. sumatranus is much less remarkable, when we bear 

 in mind the several fossil two-horned species of Europe and Asia, to which 

 moreover the existing two-horned Asiatic Rhinoceros is much more nearly akin 

 than it is to the different African two-horned species, as before remarked. 



