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Show 1868.] DISTRIBUTION OF RHINOCEROS. 441 to be quite true, that therefore the skull was that of an animal which lived in Borneo. A collector in the Malayan archipelago moving about from place to place, or a resident receiving curiosities from all sources, would have many things in his stores collected at various places; but it would never follow that they were all to be held to have been collected at the port from which they happened to be shipped home. It would be going a long way back to the infancy of collecting if we are to take the port of shipment as proof of the locality, and most of all in that archipelago, where different islands with different products lie so near to each other. Next, before we can trust even the statement that it had been received direct from Borneo, we should require to know the name and reputation of the dealer. There are dealers who know the importance of accuracy in localities, and there are dealers who do not. There are dealers (such as Mr. Stevens) on whose word the utmost reliance can be placed, and there are others on whom none can be placed. Of the latter there are some whose word cannot be trusted without confirmation, simply because they are habitually careless; others are intentionally dishonest; and, so far as dealers are concerned, everything in this inquiry will depend on the character of the individual. W e shall have plenty of Rhinoceroses offered from Borneo as soon as it is known that the locality will give them value. Dr. Gray should therefore have given the name of the dealer as a slight additional help to the expiscation of the truth ; and others might then have been able to sift the statement, and trace the origin and history of the particular skull in question. But, according to Dr. Gray, the skull has been found to belong to a different species from the Javan one. This i3 putting the case much too broadly. Dr. Gray says that it does ; that is all; no one else does. Not having seen the skull, and even if I had, not being competent to form a judgment on its osteological characters, I offer no opinion of m y own on the value of Dr. Gray's species so far as based on them. But I have asked the opinion of one whose competence to pronounce on such questions none can dispute, viz. Professor Owen ; and he informs m e that " in his opinion the osteological characters on which Dr. Gray founds his Tapirus laurillardii, Rhinoceros nasalis, &c. are of no specific value ; and in that opinion every European zoologist is at one." I maj' add that although I do not pretend to be qualified to give an opinion on the osteological characters, there is another point on which 1 consider that I am competent to form an opinion; and that is, the support the supposed species receives from difference of locality. Now the argument that the Rhinoceros is a native of Borneo because the skull " received direct from Borneo" belongs to a different species from the Javan Rhinoceros can only have weight if the Bornean type is confined to Borneo. But it would appear that this is not the case. There is another skull in the British Museum which Dr. Gray refers to this new species, but it is marked as from Java. Dr. Gray, however, thinks this is au error, and that it must have come from Borneo, |