278 ANNUAL RECORD OF SCIENCE AND INDUSTRY. 



sister establishments. The Academy is the fortunate possess- 

 or of several nearly complete skeletons of the mastodon, and 

 has just obtained one of an Indian elephant that died not 

 long since in the vicinity of Chicago. 



. AMERICAN TAPIRS. 



We learn that the Smithsonian Institution has recently suc- 

 ceeded in obtaining two complete skeletons of the remarka- 

 ble tapir of the high lands of the United States of Colombia, 

 known to naturalists as Tapims pinchaque or roulini. Pre- 

 viously only the skull had been obtained by Roulin, by whom 

 it was first made known, and it w T as one of the rarities of the 

 great anatomical collection at Paris. The Smithsonian Insti- 

 tution had before obtained a number of skulls, and a skeleton 

 of the still more remarkable tapir of Panama, which had re- 

 mained undistinguished from the common species of Panama 

 till within a few years, when first described, under the name 

 of * Elasmognatlius bairdii, by Professor Gill, from two skulls 

 in the Smithsonian collection. There are no external or dent- 

 al differences between the tapirs corresponding with the 

 marked differences in the skulls ; the external differences be- 

 ing confined to the contour of the forehead, the color, and the 

 character of the hair. In the mountain tapir, as might be 

 expected in an animal dwelling in such elevated regions, the 

 hair -is long and coarse, and is of a black color, strongly con- 

 trasting with that of the common tapir of South America; it 

 is also somewhat smaller than that species, and has the fore- 

 head less arched from the occiput. It is confined to the high- 

 lands, and is separated, at least as far as is known, by quite 

 a wide band of country from the common species. 



SCHOOLS OF YOUNG BLUEFISII. 



For three days during the last week in December, 1871, 

 vast schools of small bluefish were noticed in Beaufort Har- 

 bor, North Carolina, in company with fat-backs and yellow- 

 tailed shad, apparently slowly working toward the sea by the 

 route of the Inlet. They were coming from the southward 

 through the Sound, and swam very slowly, at times nearly 

 leaving the Sound and then returning. Efforts made to cap- 

 ture some were unsuccessful. Their size, as estimated (leap- 

 ing from the water), was four inches; some much smaller. 



