The horn of the rhinoceros, differing in structure from that of
every other animal, and placed in a situation, of which it is the only
example, had long appeared to me to be an anomaly very deserving of
examination ; and therefore on the present occasion, it was the first
object of my curiosity and attention. The view which I now began
to take, of its structure and nature, was afterwards, in the course of
my journey, further confirmed by the following mode of reasoning,
which, to render it less complicated, I shall confine to the class of
Mammalia, or, as it is more commonly called, quadrupeds. Dispersed
over the skin of all animals, are pores which I have supposed to
secrete a peculiar fluid, which may be designated by the name of
corneous matter. This secretion, or fluid, is designed by nature for the
forming of various most useful and important additamenta, all of
which, continue growing during the whole life; have an insertion not
deeper than the thickness of the skin ; and are further distinguished
by the absence of all sensibility and vascular organization, being
purely exuvial parts like the perfected feathers of birds. In all
these parts, the growth takes place by the addition of new matter at
their base. When these pores are separate, they produce hairs.
When they are confluent and in a line, they produce the nails the
claws and the hoofs, the fibrous appearance of which, naturally leads
to the supposition of their being confluent hairs: and the same may
be said of the scales of the Manis. The quills of the porcupine,
hedgehog, and other animals, may be regarded as hairs of extraordinary
size. When the pores are confluent and in a ring, they
furnish the corneous case of the horns of animals of the ruminating
class; and when confluent on a circular area, they supply matter for
the formation of a solid horn, such as we see on the rhinoceros.
An examination of the structure and appearance of this latter, will
be found to support my explanation of its nature; as about its base, it
is in most instances, evidently rough and fibrous like a worn-out
brush. * It grows from the skin only, in the same manner, as the
* This appearance, has not escaped the notice of an eminent zoologist; who says,
that these animals “ portent une corne solide adhérente à la peau et de substance fibreuse
hair, a circumstance which entirely divests of improbability the
assertion of its being sometimes seen loose, although by no means
so loose as some writers have supposed. Nor is it at all extraordinary
that the rhinoceros should possess the power of moving it, to a certain
degree, since the hog, to which, in a natural arrangement, it
so closely a pproaches, has a much greater power of moving its
bristles, which if concreted would form a horn of the same nature.
With respect to the idea, which I had entertained, of a single horn
being an anomaly, it arose from the consideration, that all the
osseous parts of animals, excepting the spine, were in pairs; those
which appear single, being in fact divided longitudinally by a suture.
So that any bony process, such as that which supports the corneous
case of horned animals, must, to be single or in the central line of
the face or head, stand over a suture; a case which no anatomist has
hitherto discovered in Nature, f The single horn of the rhinoceros,
is therefore no anomaly; because, having no connection with, or not
deriving its origin from, the bones, and being, as I have endeavoured
to show, only concreted hair, Nature might, if its mode of life required,
have given it other horns of the same kind on any part of
the body, without at all disturbing that system and those laws, which
she has followed in the structure of every quadruped.
It is this rule of nature, and consequent reasoning, which will
not allow me to believe that the unicorn, such as we see it represented,
exists any where but in those representations, or in
imagination: and many circumstances concur to render it highly
probable, that the name was at first intended for nothing more than
a species of rhinoceros.
As we professed to shoot these animals for the advantage prinet
cornée, comme si elle était composée de poils agglutinés.” Cuvier, Règne Animal,
tome 1. p.239.
f It is scarcely necessary to remark that the horn (as it is called) of the Sea-Unicom,
{Monodon Monoceros) is in reality one of two teeth or tusks, and is inserted on the
side of the central line, or suture,, o f tfie skull ; the other tusk remaining always buried
within the jaw-bone. So that this unicorn is, in structure, a two-horhed animal, and has
in fact sometimes been found with both tusks grown out to an equal length.