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Show 4.j0 PROF. W. H. FLOWER ON THE CRANIAL AND [May 16, and figured by Dr. Gray in the paper above referred to as R.floweri, and called in the Catalogue of the Museum of the College of Surgeons R. sumatranus, is a very characteristic specimen of R. sondaicus, belonging perhaps to what Blyth would call the narrow type of that species, lt was presented by Sir Stamford Raffles together with the Sumatran specimens, though no locality is recorded for this individual. This circumstance probably occasioned its being entered in the Catalogue asR. sumatranus; for although it is not certain that it came from Sumatra, it is quite probable, as we have now other reasons for believing that R. sondaicus is an inhabitant of that great island. The two skulls in the British Museum (supposed to be from Borneo) described by Dr. Gray as R. nasalis also present, in my opinion, no characters by which they can be distinguished from R. sondaicus, while on the other hand his R. stenocephalus is a young example of B. unicornis, or at all events has all the essential characters of that species as distinguished from R. sondaicus. The specific distinctions relied upon by Dr. Gray, the narrowness and rounding of the upper surface of the skull, appear to m e far too liable to individual variation to constitute valid characters without other evidence *. A skeleton, lately received at the British Museum, through Mr. Franks, of Amsterdam, from Sumatra, is R. sondaicus, thus affording confirmatory evidence to that already obtained f of the presence of both the two-horned and one-horned species in that island. A still more interesting circumstance, as enlarging our knowledge of the geographical distribution of these animals, is, that the young skull obtained from Borneo by Mr. Low, of Labuan, added last year to the British-Museum collection, and of the habitat of which there is not a shadow of uncertainty, as in the case of the other supposed Bornean skulls in the same collection (which are R. sondaicus), belongs to the two-horned species or R. sumatrensis. This fact, with that lately recorded by Mr. Sclater J, of the occurrence of this form in Assam, give the two extremes at present known of its range. A question has lately arisen whether there may not be two species of Asiatic two-horned rhinoceroses. Cuvier already believed that there were two varieties in the island of Sumatra, distinguished by their size; but the question has been brought into prominence by the presence in our gardens of two living animals of tbe same sex, one from Chittagong, and one from the southern part of the Malay peninsula, presenting such differences of size, colour, length of tail, and distribution of hair, that they would strike any zoologist as being examples, if not of different species, at least of very well marked varieties. In the former light they have been regarded by Mr. Sclater, who has bestowed the name of R. lasiotis, or Hairy-eared * Mr. Busk (P. Z. S. 1869, p. 413, foot-note) has already recorded his opinion that all these three species of Dr. Gray are indistinguishable from R. sondaicus. As regards the first two, as will be seen above, I a m of the same opinion, but not as regards the third. t The teeth brought by Mr. Wallace and cl escribed by Mr. Busk, and Ihe probability of the skull presented to the College of Surgeons by Sir T. Raffles being from that island. I P. Z. S. 187.^, p. 566. |