210 TWO-HORNED RHINOCEROS. 



Upon the whole, there can be little doubt that 

 there are, in reality, three different species of 

 Rhinoceros, viz. the common or single-horned 

 Asiatic Rhinoceros, which seems to admit of oc- 

 casional varieties, and may, perhaps, be sometimes 

 furnished with a second or smaller horn; the Af- 

 rican double-horned Rhinoceros with a rough or 

 tuberculated skin, which was the species known 

 to the ancient Romans; and, lastly, the Sumatran 

 double-horned Rhinoceros, described and figured 

 by Mr. Bell in the Philosophical Transactions. 



The skulls of the above animals, compared to- 

 gether, exclusive of other characters, afford suf- 

 ficient grounds for supposing a real difference of 

 species. It is also necessary to observe here, that 

 the Sumatran species, being furnished with dentes 

 primores, or fore teeth, seems, of course, to con- 

 tradict the character of the order Bruta, in which 

 it is here placed. The common Rhinoceros also, 

 when young, is provided with fore teeth, which 

 are afterwards lost; as is probably the case in the 

 Sumatran species. 



In the twelfth edition of the Systema Naturae 

 the genus Rhinoceros was stationed among the 

 Belluce. In reality, however, where other promi- 

 nent characters appear, and which are of them- 

 selves sufficient for the purpose of investigation, 

 this scrupulous attention to the nature and situa- 

 tion of the teeth is the less important. 



Mons. Geoffroy, in the Magazin Encyclope- 

 dique, is inclined to believe that there either exist, 

 or, at least, have existed, no less than five differ- 



