TAPIRUS. 103 
Tapir, which is still preserved in the Copenhagen Museum, but is in too bad condition 
to be satisfactorily determined*. In 1874, however, two skulls were sent from that 
State by Mr. Constantine Rickards to Mr. Sclater, who presented them to the Museum 
of the Royal College of Surgeons !; and these prove to belong to 7. bairdi. The young 
male figured by Mr. Sclater !° was obtained by Mr. D. Ridpath from the interior of 
Nicaragua; and the British Museum has recently purchased, through the Smithsonian 
Institution, a complete skeleton of this species, one of a pair sent by Sefior Zeledon’s 
collectors from Pacuar, on the Atlantic coast of Costa Rica. The half-grown specimen 
which Mr. Salvin procured for the British Museum °’ was obtained, he informs me, 
from Veragua. Dr. Gill’s type specimens were collected by Dr. White at Panama?; 
and Captain Dow wrote to Mr. Sclater in 1867 that in that State specimens had hitherto 
been exclusively found on the Atlantic side of the Isthmus and to the north of the 
Chagres River®. As it will be presently seen that Dow’s Tapir has been found in 
Guatemala, Nicaragua, and Costa Rica, it would appear that both species are found in 
these States, and that the range of T. bairdi extends further both to the northward and 
to the southward than that of 7. dow. . 
Owing to the confusion of the two forms, it is impossible to say with certainty which 
species it was that was met with in Nicaragua by the late Mr. Belt, who observes that 
the Danta is a harmless beast, and that one of his men, who came suddenly upon one 
near Pefia Blanca, killed it with his knife}. In Costa Rica Dr. v. Frantzius says that 
Baird’s Tapir is found both in the hot lowlands and on the highest mountain-ranges. 
The Dania, he tells us, “is much hunted, for its flesh is very delicate ; the backwoods- 
men salt it or dry it in the air, and thus provide themselves with large stores. Its thick 
hide is also useful, for thongs cut from it are twisted and dried, and form very lasting 
riding-whips. Tapirs are very fond of the salt-licks which are formed in the neighbour- 
hood of the numerous mineral springs by the evaporation of the saline water; here they 
are either shot with bullets on moonlight nights, or are hunted down with dogs and 
killed with spears ” °. 
According to Captain Dow’s observations in Panama, the favourite haunts of Baird’s 
Tapir “ appear to be in the hills lying at the back of Lion Hill and the adjoining stations 
of the Panama railway. It is only during the rainy season that they seem to seek the 
lowlands ; for it is only at that season that they are captured. They are not hunted by 
the natives; and it is only when they happen to stray out into the open spaces of the 
railway that the young ones are sometimes captured alive and the old ones shot” ®. 
South of the Isthmus we have no evidence of the existence of Baird’s Tapir, it being 
seemingly replaced in Colombia by the Andean Tapir, 7. roulini, Fischer, in the 
mountains, and by the common species, 7. americanus, Gmelin, in the warm lowlandsf. 
* Of. Reinhardt, P. Z. 8. 1867, p. 473, footnote. 
+ ‘Naturalist in Nicaragua,’ p. 144. ’ + Cf. Goudot, Compt. Rend. Ac. Par. xvi. pp. 331-334. 
