Sterndale gives 10 ft. 7½ ins. as the largest authentic measurement on record, and oddly enough quotes Sanderson as authority for the measurement of this elephant, which belonged to the Sirmoor Rajah.
As regards tusks, Sanderson’s biggest pair measured 4 ft. 11 ins. and 5 ft. respectively, with a girth of 16½ ins. at the gum, the pair weighing 74½ lbs.
Sir Victor Brooke’s big tusker measured: Right tusk, 8 ft.; 5 ft. 9 ins. outside socket; girth 1 ft. 4⁹⁄₁₀ ins.; weight, 90 lbs. Left tusk, 3 ft. 3 ins.; 1 ft. 2 ins. outside socket; girth, 1 ft. 8 ins.; weight, 49 lbs.
The skeleton of the well-known Arcot rogue elephant, now in the Madras Museum, measures 10 ft. 6 ins. at the shoulder. Mr. Rowland Ward considers that when alive it must have stood 10 ft. 10 ins.
‘Jumbo,’ the African elephant in the Zoological Gardens, stood 11 ft., and Sir S. Baker says that African elephants measure 12 ft. or more.
The three largest African tusks recorded in ‘Horn Measurements,’ by Rowland Ward, are:
| Length | Greatest circumference | Weight |
|---|---|---|
| ft. ins. | ins. | lbs. |
| 9 5 | 22½ | 184 |
| 9 4 | 20½ | 160 |
| 9 4 | 18 | 110 |
XIII. RHINOCEROS
There are no fewer than four different kinds of rhinoceros to be found in India and Burmah; viz. Indicus, Sondaicus, Lasiotis and Sumatrensis. The first, which is the most generally known, extends from the Nepal Terai to Assam. The second is found in the Sunderbuns, and from Manipur through Burmah to the Malay Peninsula; the third is found in Arakan and Tenasserim; the fourth, from Tenasserim through Burmah to Siam and the Malay Peninsula; the two first varieties being one-horned, the two last two-horned. The Asiatic rhinoceros differs from the African in three particulars: the skin is divided into shields by well-marked folds; he has long upper cutting teeth (the African having none), and the nasal bones of the skull are produced and conical instead of broad and round (Sterndale).
The chief difference between R. indicus and R. sondaicus is that the latter has a well-marked fold in front of the shoulders, the line running over the back of the neck, whilst in Indicus it dies away on the shoulder-blade; the head of Sondaicus is also somewhat slenderer, and the female has no horn. In Indicus both sexes have this horn, and the curious tesselated appearance of the hide in one is very different from the tuberculated armour of the other.