458 PROCEEDINGS OF THE GEOLOGICAL SOCIETY. [Apr. 27,
The above appear to have been the only Rhinocerine remains
discovered at Oreston ; for, although in 1823 a further set of
caverns was laid open, whose contents have been ably described by
Mr. Clift in the ' Philosophical Transactions ' for 1824, nothing
belonging to Rhinoceros was there found *.
The specimens enumerated by Sir E.* Home are about twenty-two in number ; but this cannot have included all that were sent by Mr. Whidbey, since the number of specimens assigned to the locality in the Catalogue of the Museum of the Royal College of Surgeons, where they are deposited, is thirty-eight or thirty-nine. They are numbered from 877 to 916. The tooth mentioned by Sir E. Home as having been found in the second cavern does not appear to be among them ; and one of the numbered specimens (897) is not at present forthcoming.
As regards condition and colour, with one or two exceptions, the specimens have a very uniform aspect ; and it is highly probable that Professor Owen is right in assigning them all to a single individual.
Sir E. Home imagined that the glenoid cavity of the scapula was too small in proportion to the head of the corresponding humerus, and that a detached olecranon belonged to a still smaller individual. But as regards the scapula in question, there does not appear to be any reason to concur in this suggestion ; and as I have been unable to find the detached olecranon, I can offer no opinion respecting it. Most of the other epiphyses of the larger long bones are detached, which is in favour of the supposition that the ulna may have formed part of the same skeleton, of an individual which had not attained to full maturity.
It should be observed, however, on the point of age, that the complete union of the distal epiphysis of the humerus and of that of the metacarpals, and the much worn condition of the teeth, show that the animal must have reached pretty nearly its full stature ; and if the rate of the development of the bones was the same as in the Elephant, it was probably somewhere about twenty years old. It must be confessed, however, that the teeth, for some reason, appear to be rather unduly worn for that age.
Sir Everard Home, as might be expected from the period at which he wrote, made no attempt to discriminate the species to which the remains belonged, unless we may interpret his expression respecting the tooth found in the second cavern as implying that he regarded them as belonging to Rhinoceros unicornis. Nor does Cuvier, when referring to Sir Everard Home's paper, make any remark on this point.
- In ' British Fossil Mammals ' (p. 343), it is stated, with reference to the
Rhinoceros-bones, that most of the parts recovered from this cavern were determined by Mr. Clift. But this does not appear to be the case. The remains described, and so beautifully figured by Mr. Clift, are those which occurred in the third set of caverns in the year 1823, and which, as above stated, did not afford any Rhinocerine remains. The bones forwarded to Sir Joseph Banks were "determined" by Sir Everard Home, and not by Mr. Clift.
