144 . MAMMALIA. 



as the genera recognised in other families, and indeed more so 

 than in many. 



The geographical range of the Great Indian Rhinoceros would 

 appear to be at present restricted, or very nearly so, to the tarai, 

 an unhealthy marshy tract at the foot of the Himalaya, skirting 

 the territories of Nipal, Sikhim, and Bhotan. As remarked by an 

 experienced naturalist. Dr. Jerdon, in his Mammals of India, this 

 animal " is more common in the eastern portions of the tarai than 

 the western, and is most abundant in Assam and the Bhotan 

 Dooars. I have heard from one sportsman," he adds, " of its 

 occurrence as far west as Rohilkund, but it is certainly rare there 

 now, and indeed along the greatest part of the Nipal tarai; and, 

 although a few have been killed in the Sikhim tarai, they are 

 more numerous east of the Teesta river." Dr. Jerdon suspects 

 that it has crossed the great river Brahmaputra, and that it may be 

 found in some of the hill ranges to the east and south of that river. 

 From the dimensions given of a pair killed in the Garrow hills, 

 in the territory indicated, we conclude that such must be the case, 

 and that both of the One-horned Rhinoceroses are there met 

 with ; but from recent investigations it would appear that from 

 thence southward, it is comjoletely replaced by the R. sondaicus, a 

 smaller kind, which has generally been supposed to be peculiar to 

 the island of Java. 



The difference between these two species of One-horned Rhino- 

 ceros is not sufficiently striking to be noticeable by an ordinary 

 beholder, unless perhaps he might chance to have the rare oppor- 

 tunity of comparing the two together ; and thus there are sports- 

 men who have killed both species in their respective haunts, but 

 liave fliiled to discriminate them apart, considering the smaller 

 kind to be merely not fully grown. The H. sondaicus is about (or 

 almost) a third less in size than the S. indicus, and its coat of mail 

 is much the same, except that the tubercles on the hide are con- 

 siderably smaller and of uniform size throughout, and (at least in 

 the j-oung animal) the polygonal facets of the skin have a few 

 small bristles growing upon a depression in the centre of each of 

 them. One marked distinction at all ages consists in this, that 

 the strong fold or plait at the setting on of the neck, which is 

 continued across the shoulders in the smaller species, or R. son- 

 daicus, is not continued across in the larger one, or R. indicus, but 



