198 
Correspondence. 
[No. 2, 
Why should the Elephant of Borneo have been introduced by 
human agency, any more than the Rhinoceros sondaicfs, or the 
Bos sondaicus ; which latter would appear to be remarkably numer¬ 
ous on the vast island ? 
I have been assured that there is no notice of the Rhinoceros in 
the early Sanscrit writings; but then the river Ganges is mentioned 
once only in the whole course of the Vedas. Questioning Mr. E. B. 
Cowell on the subject, he obligingly writes word—“ There are at 
least two Sanscrit words for Rhinoceros, Khadga or Khadgin (Khad - 
ga properly means * a sword’—then the horn, and lastly the animal, 
—Khadgin means the c sword-bearer,’) and Gandaka Uganda pro¬ 
perly means £ a cheek’). Both words are found in the Amara Kosha 
dictionary about 56 B. C., and the words Khadgin and Khadga 
occur in the MahdbJiarata and R&mayana . The Hindustani word is 
Gaindd; and I suspect Baber used this term, as all our Indo- 
Persian writers use Hindustani terms pretty freely. There is, how¬ 
ever, a good Persian word for it, Karkadan ; and I find in Richard¬ 
son’s dictionary a new fact in Natural History which I doubt if even 
you have found out. I transcribe his whole account. 
“ ‘ The horn of this animal, it is said, sweats on the approach of 
any species of poison, for which reason many Eastern princes make 
use of it constantly at table ; when split through the middle there is 
the resemblance of a man represented by white lines, together with 
the figures of several birds.* 
“ There are several Arabic names for the Rhinoceros, as Mirmis, 
Ilirmis , KarJcaddan ; but these names tell nothing.” The Arabs, 
however, most probably obtained their knowledge of the genus from 
one or more of the African species. Gond/t is the name applied in 
Bengal (misspelt Gomdd in Parsons’s paper in the Phil. Trans.), 
passing into Qorra in Upper Hindustan : Kyen or Kyeng is the 
Burmese name ; and Btidak or Bodok the Malayan. Gondd has at 
least the merit of brevity over Rhinoceros , and is quite as euphonous. 
With respect to the history of the skeleton of Rh. sondaicus in 
the Society’s museum, vide J. A. S. Ill, 142, IX, 518, X, 928. The 
mentioned by him by its name of Kijang. So familiar a bird (in museums at 
least) as a l'rogon, he does not know by that name, but terms it the ‘ Omen- 
bird’ (II, 62, 67, 95) ; arid the remarkable wild Boar of Borneo (Sus barbatus) 
he fails to recognise as a peculiar species. The Bos SONDAlCFs would appear to 
be very common in the part of Borneo traversed by Mr. St. John, and he desig¬ 
nates it by the name Tambadau. 
