Quadrupeds, 



8517 



Of the three genera containing the most bulky of existing land quad- 

 rupeds additional species have been distinguished, though, for the 

 most part, they may not yet be universally accepted. Of Elephas, the 

 E. sumatranus of Temminck and Schlegel, to which Sir J. Emerson 

 Tennent refers the Ceylon elephant;* of Rhinoceros, a second black 

 African species, the R. keitloa of A. Smith, long previously indicated 

 by Sir J. Barrow by the name " Jekloa," and a second white African 

 rhinoceros, the R. Oswellii of Elliot, besides the R. Crossii of Gray 

 (founded on the horn only, and the habitat of which is unknown) ; 

 and of Hippopotamus, the species of North and South Africa respec- 

 tively are distinguished by Dr. Leidy and others (sinking H. sene- 

 galensis of authors, as a synonym of the former), and there is also the 

 Hippopotamus or Chceropsis liberiensis, which is a most undoubted 

 species, considered, as we have seen, entitled to generic rank by 

 Dr. Leidy. Whether external differences exist between the great 

 Hippopotami pf North and South Africa remains to be shown ; as also 

 in the case of the European and American beavers, which Owen 

 separated on account of differences in the configuration of the skull: 

 in another animal first so discriminated, the Phascolomys latifrons of 

 Owen, good external distinctions have since been discovered, which 

 characterize it well apart from P. wombat. Of other Pachydermata of 



* The grinders of Elephas sumatranus are said to be intermediate in form to 

 those of the Indian and African species; and I have just purchased a pair of table- 

 weights, formed each of a thick horizontal section of an elephant's molar tooth, which 

 seems to me to be of this species. The little boxes formed of sections of elephant's 

 molars, which are commonly brought from Galle, are, so far as I have seen, of the 

 Indian species; but these are not necessarily from Cinghalese individuals. It is 

 worthy of remark, however, that whilst among the elephants of Sumatra and Borneo 

 fine tuskers would appear to be common, and the ivory is an article of export from 

 both islands, as I am assured by a gentleman who has collected the article in Borneo, 

 they are exceedingly rare among the elephants of Ceylon, where, nevertheless, it has 

 been suggested that tuskers are so much sought after that they are seldom permitted 

 to develope their ivories. With reference to Sir J. E. Tennent's speculation regarding 

 the former continuity of land between Sumatra and Ceylon and Africa, of which the 

 intermediate character of Elephas sumatranus is one of his presumptive proofs, it may 

 be remarked that the two-horned Rhinoceros sumatranus, with its only slight skin- 

 folds, interposes a link between the two-horned and smooth-skinned African and the 

 single-horned and mail-clad Asian species; but, not to allude further to the alleged 

 existence of a single-horned African species, the presence of the second horn in 

 It. sumatranus is much less remarkable when we bear in mind the several fossil two- 

 horned species of Europe and Asia, to which, moreover, the existing two-horned 

 Asiatic rhinoceros is much more nearly akin than it is to the different African two- 

 horned species, as before remarked. 



