200 Proof of certain Statements m the 



sheets, not a single sentence of the two volumes now com- 

 pleted was written by him, except where expressly quoted 

 from his published works. I affixed my name, as editor, to the 

 preface to the first volume, contained in the tenth number, 

 and published in July last ; and a statement that " the descrip- 

 tions and anecdotes " (in other words, the entire text) were 

 furnished by me, appeared on the cover of every number, 

 from the first to the twelfth, including the eighth, " the last 

 number/' as Mr. Swainson was informed, " which has been 

 published,'' and the eleventh, to which he refers. I alone am 

 therefore responsible for the paragraph in question, as well as 

 for the whole of the statements contained in the publication. 



That paragraph I must request that you will again print 

 (on the present occasion entire), in order that your readers 

 may have an opportunity of judging at a glance whether the 

 statements contained in it are or are not borne out by the 

 evidence which I am about to produce. It is as follows : — 



" The history of this transaction [the discovery of the In- 

 dian tapir] affords too striking an illustration of the injustice 

 of certain among the French zoologists to the merits of our 

 countrymen, to be passed over without observation. 



" ' The knowledge of this animal in France,' says M. Des- 

 marest, in his Mammalogie, carefully shielding himself under 

 an equivocal form of expression, ' is due to M. Diard.' But 

 M. Lesson goes farther, and, echoing as usual the dicta 

 of his predecessor, with a slight addition of his own, speaks 

 of the Indian tapir as a species ' discovered by M. Diard.' 

 Again, in the Dictionnaire des Sciences Naturellts, M. Des- 

 marest, forgetful of his former caution, heightens the farce 

 still more, by asserting, that its ' discovery in the forests 

 of Sumatra and the peninsula of Malacca is due to MM. 

 Duvaucel and Diard.' In none of these works is the least 

 indication given that the animal in question had previously 

 been even seen by an Englishman ; much less is the fact suf- 

 fered to transpire, that, long before M. Diard had * discovered' 

 it, not in the forests of Sumatra or the Malayan peninsula, 

 but in the menagerie of the Governor-General of British 

 India at Barrackpore, a full description, together with a figure 

 of the animal and of its skull, had been laid before the Asiatic 

 Society by Major Farquhar for publication in their Researches. 

 This latter circumstance, it is true, was not mentioned by M. 

 Frederic Cuvier, when he figured the tapir of Malacca in his 

 splendid work from a drawing made by M. Diard in the Bar- 

 rackpore menagerie, or by that gentleman himself in the pub- 

 lished part of his accompanying letter ; but there seems to 

 have been no intention on their parts wilfully to mislead their 



