﻿INTRODUCTION. xxxi 



Cuvier's definition of the species was wrong. In the year 1846, Professor Owen, on the 

 discovery of a non-tichorhine skull and lower jaws at Clacton in Essex, inferred from the 

 correspondence of the latter with those from the Val d'Arno described by Cuvier, that the 

 rhinoceros of Clacton and that of Italy belonged to one and the same species. And as 

 the skull found at the former place presented traces of a partial septum between the nares 

 he proposed that Cuvier's definition of " B. a narines non-cloisonnees " should be altered 

 into " B. a narines demi-cloisonnees." Whether the lower jaws from Italy, by which 

 Professor Owen connects his species with that of the great anatomist, belong to the 

 leptorhin£ as defined by the latter or not may be an open question ; but as the assemblage 

 of remains of rhinoceros from Clacton has been truly and accurately defined by Professor 

 Owen as belonging to B. leptorhinus, under which name they have been in the catalogues 

 of British Fossils for the last 18 years, the specific name as imposed by Professor Owen 

 ought to be maintained. The Bhinoceros leptorhinus then, or B. a narines demi-cloisonnees 

 of Professor Owen, 1 the equivalent of B. hemitcechus of Dr. Falconer is the second species 

 of fossil rhinoceros found m Britain. Like the tichorhine species it was bicorn ; but 

 probably from the partial ossification of the anterior continuation of the vomer, the anterior 

 horn was much smaller than in the latter. The head and the bones were much more 

 slender, the anterior combing -plate is invariably absent from the upper permanent molar 

 series, and a very large number of other differences are observable which it is superfluous 

 to mention here without the aid of figures. It occurs in the brick-earths and gravel-pits 

 of the " lower terrace " of the Thames Valley at Clacton, Ilford, Crayford, and Peckham. 

 It is one of the species that fell a prey to the hysenas of Kirkdale and Wookey Hole, and its 

 teeth and skulls have been found in the ossiferous caverns of Gower and of Durdham 

 Down near Clifton. Both upper and lower jaws associated with the Hippopotamus 

 major and Mephas antiquus have been obtained from the river deposits at Lexden near 

 Colchester. 



Species Bhinoceros megarhinus, De Christol. 3 — Out of the confusion which the non- 

 tichorhine continental species were involved, M. de Christol determined in 1835, one valid 

 species, Bhinoceros megarJdnus, so called from the large size of its nasals. In the type 



Geol. Journ.,' 1865, p.° 285) lie says of a skull of Elephas meridionalis, "It was found at no great 

 distance from the classic cranium of Monte Zago, upon which Cuvier founded his Rhinoceros leptorhinus, 

 as an extinct species devoid of any bony partition between the nostrils. Both specimens are now pre- 

 served in the Natural History Museum of Milan, and, by the permission of Dr. Emilio Cornalia, I had 



an opportunity of examining them minutely The skull of the rhinoceros is exactly as Cuvier in 



the first instance, and Dr. Cornalia subsequently, described it, i. e., without a trace of an external nasal 

 septum." 



1 It is probably the same species as that described by Aymard, as B. mesotropus (Pictet, Paleontologie, 

 1856, t. 1, p. 298) ; B. leptorhinus du Puy., by Gervaise, (Zool. et Pal. Fran., 1st edit. t. 1, p. 48) ; and as 

 B. Aymardi, by Pomel. ('Cat. Method.,' p. 78, 1854.) Gervaise describes this fossil species as being ona 

 " dont les narines sont separees par une demi-cloison osseuse.' 

 2 Op. cit. 



