8506 



Quadrupeds. 



A Memoir on the living Asiatic Species of Rhinoceros. 

 By Edward Blyth, Esq., F.L.S., &c. 



Among the investigations to which I devoted particular attention 

 during my late rambles in Burma, was the endeavour to corroborate 

 and confirm the statement of Heifer and others, that the three known 

 Asiatic species of rhinoceros inhabited that region. In this I suc- 

 ceeded, so far as the two insular species — i.e. the one-horned Rhino- 

 ceros sondaicus and the two-horned R. sumatranus — are concerned ; 

 for these prove to be the ordinary rhinoceroses of the Indo-Chinese 

 region and continuous Malayan peninsula, and I have reason now to 

 believe that they are the only rhinoceroses of that great range of terri- 

 tory, the huge R. indicus, so far as I can discover, appearing to be 

 peculiar to the tarai region at the foot of the Himalayas and valley of 

 the Brahmaputra, or province of Asam ; the rhinoceros still common in 

 the eastern Sundarb£lns, and also of the Rajmahal hills in Bengal, 

 where fast verging on extirpation, being identical with that of Java 

 and Borneo, in the great oriental archipelago ; while the Asiatic two- 

 horned species, R. sumatranus, appears to be more common than the 

 lesser one-horned, R. sondaicus, in the Indo-Chinese territories, this 

 animal extending northwards to^the Ya-ma-doung range of mountains 

 which separates Arakan from Pegu, where Colonel Yule observed it as 

 high as the latitude of Ramri island, and I have been assured by 

 Major Ripley that one was killed not long ago in the vicinity of 

 Sandoway. What the particular species may have been that was 

 hunted by the Mogul Emperor Baber on the banks of the Indus 

 cannot now be ascertained, unless, indeed, some bones of it may yet 

 be recovered from the alluvium of that river: it is remarkable that he 

 compares its bowels to those of a horse ! A species is also stated by 

 Duhalde to inhabit the province of Quang-si in China, in lat. ]5°. 

 This is much more likely to prove either R. sondaicus or R. suma- 

 tranus than the large R. indicus. 



It is true that the late Dr. Theodore Cantor, in his 6 Catalogue of 

 the Mammalia of the Malayan Peninsula,' asserts that both R. indicus 

 and R. sondaicus seem to be numerous there ; but he does not men- 

 tion that he had examined specimens, and he moreover notices that 

 £< a two-horned rhinoceros is stated by the Malays to inhabit, but 

 rarely to leave, the densest jungle." As this animal is common in 

 parts of Burma, as well as in Sumatra, it may be confidently pre- 

 dicated to inhabit the intervening region of the Malayan peninsula ; 



