Introduction. 



xv 



region, which extends southward as far as Penang and Province Wellesley, 

 where his Malayan sub-region commences. 



The interest which Blyth had always taken in the Ehinoceros group was 

 revived by the safe arrival at the Zoological Gardens of the Chittagong indi- 

 vidual, the Ceratorhinus erossei of the present Catalogue. In his paper con- 

 tributed to the ' Annals ? in 1872, he argues against Gray's assignment of this 

 species to Rhinoceros suniatrensis, and in favour of its identity with the 

 fine Tavoy specimen shot by Col. Eytche, and figured in this Journal, vol. xxxi. 

 p. 156. Blyth 5 s conjecture that the Arakan Hills is one of the habitats of 

 this species is borne out by the letter in which Capt. Lewin, the superin- 

 tendent of the Hill Tracts of Chittagong, first reported to me in 1867 the 

 capture of the animal.^ After giving her measurements, which were then 

 6 feet from crown of head to root of tail, and 4 feet 2 inches in height, and 

 otherwise minutely describing her horns, Capt. Lewin adds : " You are mis- 

 taken I think in supposing that she has come from the Tenasserim Provinces 

 — the two-horned species is found in my hills. I have seen one alive, and 

 several of my men have seen a dead one." 



In the Journal of Travel and Natural History, No. 2,f of 1868, will be 

 found a letter from Blyth in explanation of some remarks which he had made 

 at the Zoological Society on the occasional shedding or loss by violence of 

 rhinoceros' horns, followed by their renewal. In this he takes the opportunity 

 of pointing out the tendency which some species have to develope a rudi- 

 mentary horn on the forehead, and argues for the possible explanation in this 

 manner of cases of three-horned rhinoceroses being reported by travellers. 



The connexion which Blyth established, first with 'Land and "Water, 7 

 and later with the * Pield,' gave him interesting literary occupation; 

 and the 'Naturalist ' columns of both these journals abound in scraps 

 by 'Zoophilus,' which did real service to the advancement of scientific truth. 

 No pen so ready as his to expose current fallacies or sensational announce- 

 ments in works of travel of the results of loose and careless observations. 

 Yery many of his c scraps ' are worthy of being collected and preserved, for 

 such use as we see they have been turned to by Mr. Darwin. These columns 

 occasionally contained more elaborate papers, such as the series in the 

 1 Field 7 for 1873, on '"Wild Animals dispersed by human agency/ and 'On 

 the Gruidse or Crane family/ This monograph, for such it amounts to, was 



* The date of capture is erroneously given, both by Mr. Blyth and by Dr. Anderson in 

 his cited communication to the Zoological Society, 

 t Page 130. 



