In the month of September, 1770, another rhinoceros was brought to
the royal menagerie, which was said to be only three months old; but
I am persuaded it was as many years, for it was eight feet two inches
in length, including the head, five feet six inches high, and eight
feet two inches in circumference: by the 28th of August, 1781, it
had increased seven inches in length, three inches in the height,
and seven inches in circumference; and on the 12th of August, 1772,
it measured nine feet four inches in length, including the head, six
feet four inches high at the crupper, and only five feet eleven at
the withers. In some places its skin was spotted with black and grey,
and in others it was in deep furrows, having the appearance of a kind
of scales. This animal had but one horn, which was brown, and of a
very hard substance; and in all other respects he nearly resembled the
description we have already given.
Mr. Bruce has remarked, that my conjecture, that in the interior parts
of Africa there were rhinoceroses with two horns, was exactly the case,
for he saw none in Abyssinia but what had one situated near the nose,
which was of the common form, and the other rather higher on the head,
sharp at the point, and always shorter than the first. M. Daubenton
received a letter from M. Allamand at Leyden, in 1776, in which that
gentleman says, "In a passage which M. de Buffon has quoted from Mr.
Parsons, it is supposed, that the rhinoceroses of Asia have but one
horn, and those of the Cape of Good Hope have two, but I am inclined
to believe the opposite is the fact, for the heads of those I have
received from Bengal, and other parts of India, had always two horns,
and those which came from the Cape had but one." This remark of M.
Allamand we may consider as a confirmation of our former observation,
that the rhinoceroses with two horns form a variety in the species, and
may be equally found in Asia and Africa.
_END OF THE SEVENTH VOLUME._
T. Gillet, Printer, Wild-court.