40G 
TtlE VOYAGE OF THE VEGA. 
[chap. 
regions along the coast of the Polar Sea, avoids the light, and 
lives in dark holes in the interior of the earth. Its flesh is 
said to be cooling and wholesome. Some Chinese literati con¬ 
sidered that the discovery of these immense earth rats might 
even explain the origin of earthquakes.^ 
It was not until the latter half of the last century that a 
European scientific man had an opportunity of examining a 
similar find. In the year 1771 a complete rhinoceros, with flesh 
and hide, was uncovered by a landslip on the river Wilui in 64° 
N.L. Its head and feet are still preserved at St. Petersburg. 
All the other parts were allowed to be destroyed for want of 
means of transport and preservation.^ What was taken away 
showed that this primeval rhinoceros [Bhinoceros antiquitatis 
Blumenbach) had been covered with hair and differed from all 
now living species of the same family^ though strongly re¬ 
sembling them in shape and size. Already, long before the 
horns of the fossil rhinoceros had attracted the attention of 
the natives, pieces of these horns were used for the same pur¬ 
poses for which the Chukches employ strips of whalebone, viz. 
to increase the elasticity of their bows. They were considered at 
the same time to exert a like beneficial influence on the arrow, 
tending to make it hit the mark, as, according to the hunter’s 
superstition among ourselves in former days, some cat’s claws 
and owl’s eyes placed in the bullet mould had on the ball. The 
natives believed that the crania and horns of the rhinoceros 
found along with the remains of the mammoth belonged to 
1 Tilesius, De sheleto mammonteo Sibirico {Mem. de VAcad, de St. Peters- 
bourg, T. V.qpour Vannee 1812, p. 409). Middendorif, Sib. Beise^ IV. i. p. 274. 
Von Olfers, Die Vberreste vorweltlicher Biesenthiere in BezieJiung zu Ostasia- 
tiscJien Sagen und GhinesiscTien Schriften {Abhandl. derAhad.d. Wissensch. zu 
Berlin aus dem Jahre 1839, p. 51). 
2 P. S. Pallas, De reliquiis animalium exoticorum per Asiam borealem 
repertis complementum {Novi commentarii Acad. Sc. PetropoUtance, XVII. 
pro anno 1772, p. 576), and Beise durch verschiedene Provinzen des Bussischen 
Beichs, Th. III. St. Petersburg, 1776, p. 97. 
