Quadrupeds, 



8507 



but the more common and ordinary species of the peninsula would 

 appear to be ft. sondaicus ; and a friend who has killed as many as 

 nine individuals in the southern half of that region, to whom I showed 

 several skulls of R. indicus and of R. sondaicus, is positive that all which 

 he saw there were of the lesser one-horned species, as distinguished 

 from the larger. The former, as before remarked, inhabits the islands 

 of Java and Borneo in the archipelago, but not Sumatra ;* whereas the 

 two-horned species, as an insular animal, appears to be peculiar to 

 Sumatra, f In the volume on elephants, &c, in Sir W. Jardine's 

 6 Naturalist's Library,' the lesser one-horned rhinoceros is erroneously 

 styled " the one-horned Sumatran rhinoceros," a mistake which might 

 have been rectified by reference to Sir T. Stamford Raffles's paper in 

 the thirteenth volume of the 6 Transactions of the Linnean Society,' 

 which indeed is cited by the compiler. % 



The vernacular tropical names of Jdvan and Sumatran rhinoceroses 

 had now better be disused, seeing that both species have an extensive 

 range of distribution on the mainland of south-eastern Asia ; the latter 

 should rather be denominated " the Asiatic two-horned rhinoceros," 

 and the two others "the great one-horned" and "the lesser one- 

 horned," unless, indeed, the alleged discovery should be confirmed of 

 the existence of a one-horned species in inter-tropical Africa, in addi- 

 tion to the four two-horned species which are now recognised upon 

 that continent, in which case "the great Indian" and "the lesser 

 Indian" might be deemed sufficiently appropriate, as the range of the 

 "Asiatic two-horned" does not extend to India proper, which of 

 course comprises Bengal but not Burma. The existence of an African 

 one-horned rhinoceros was long ago confirmed by James Bruce, of 



* The range of Bos sondaicus is similar, excepting that this animal does not 

 extend to Bengal, like Rhinoceros sondaicus. 



f As also the Malayan tapir, the continental range of which extends northwards to 

 the Tenesserim provinces of Tavoy and Mergui. 



% The adult male rhinoceros which lived for many years in the Gardens of the 

 Zoological Society, Regent's Park, London, and for which the considerable sum of 

 £1000 was paid, is stated to have been captured in Arakan ; but he was not nearly so 

 large as several that I have since seen in India, and therefore I entertain an exceed- 

 ingly strong suspicion that he was no other than R. sondaicus. His bones have 

 doubtless been preserved. The two Asiatic one-homed species, indeed, resemble each 

 other a great deal more nearly, in external appearance, than the published figures of 

 them would lead us to suppose. Certainly no sportsman or ordinary observer would 

 distinguish them apart, unless his attention had been specially called to the subject. 

 The best figure I know of adult R. indicus is that published by Cuvier and Geoffroy, 

 in the ' Menagerie du Museum d'Histoire Naturelle.' 



