OCR Text |
Show 1867.] DR. J. E. GRAY ON THE RHINOCEROTID.E. 1009 A. The forehead and the nose behind the base of the horn flat, both in the living animal and skull. Eurhinoceros. * Upper jaw slightly contracted in front of the grinders. 1. RHINOCEROS JAVANICUS. Javan Rhinoceros. B.M. Skull broad; forehead behind the horn broad, flat, or slightly concave, obscurely keeled on the sides near base of horn ; intermaxillary bone elongate, slender, straight, without any upper process; lachrymal bone roundish, nearly as wide as high; nasal bones not quite two-fifths of the entire length of the nose and crown. Rhinoceros javanicus, F. Cuv. et Geoff. M a m . Lith.; Gray, Cat. M a m m . B. M.; Solom. Muller, Verh. t. 33, cf $ . R.javanus, Blainv. Osteogr. t. 1 (skeleton), t. 2 (skull, adult and jun.), t. 7 (teeth). R. sondaicus (R. unicorne de Java), Cuvier, Oss. Foss. ii. 33,1.14. f. 2 (skull), t. 17, 18 (skeleton); Raffles, Trans. Linn. Soc. xiii.; Horsf. Zool. Java, t. (animal) ; Blyth, Journ. Asiat. Soc. Bengal, xxxi. 1862, p. 151, t. 1. f. 2, 3, t. 2. f. 2, 3 (skull?). Hab. Java. Skull of type from Mus. Leyden. In the British Museum there are three skulls belonging to this species:- 1. A skeleton of an adult animal with a skull, purchased from the Leyden Museum, from Java. 2. A n adult skull, received from the Zoological Society. 3. A skeleton with the skull of a half-grown animal, received from the Leyden Museum through M . Franks as R. sumatranus, from Sumatra. The skull agrees in all particulars, especially in the form of the occiput and tbe concavity and breadth of the forehead and nose, with the adult skull of R. javanicus from Java; so that there must have been some mistake in the name and habitat; perhaps the wrong skeleton was sent. There is also an adult skull which has had the nasal, bone cut off (722 A), which was received from the Zoological Society under the name of R. unicornis; but I have little doubt it is a R. javanicus, perhaps from Sir Stamford Raffles. In the oldest skull (723 di) the aperture under the zygoma is 3 inches 7 lines wide in the widest part and 4 inches 9 lines long. In the adult skull 723 a, the aperture is 3 inches wide and 6 inches 1 line long. In the skull of the young specimen (723 e) the aperture is 2 inches 2 lines wide and 4 inches 7 lines long. The greater width is produced by the skull under the zygoma becoming so much narrower as the animal becomes aged. In 723 d this part is only 4 inches 7 lines, and in 723 a it is 5 inches 9 lines wide. In the Museum of the Royal College of Surgeons there are five skulls that appear to belong to this species, but one or two of them are in a bad condition (nos. 2970 and 2971, the rest are not numbered). Camper, who paid great attention to this species of Rhinoceros, in a letter to Pallas, printed in the ' Neue Nord. Beytrage' (vii. 249), |