" Gardens and Menagerie of the Zool. Soc» delineated ." 201 



readers. That M. Diard at least could not have been actu- 

 ated by any such desire, is fully proved by several passages in 

 the note appended by him to Major Farquhar's original de- 

 scription, in which he speaks of the gallant officer as ' the 

 excellent naturalist who has enriched zoology with so import- 

 ant a discovery,' and attributes the ' honour ' to him ' alone/ 

 Baron Cuvier, too, in the recent edition of his Regne Animal, 

 silently rejects the unmerited distinction in favour of his step- 

 son and friend, and candidly quotes, as the first describer, 

 our, in this instance, more fortunate countryman. After this we 

 trust that we shall hear no more of the ' discovery ' of the In- 

 dian tapir by MM. Diard and Duvaucel, who have too many 

 real claims on the consideration of zoologists to require to 

 be tricked out in those borrowed plumes with which it has 

 hitherto been the fashion among our neighbours to invest 

 them." 



In this extract it wull at once be seen that there is no 

 " sweeping accusation " brought against " French naturalists 

 collectively : " on the contrary, the assumed " injustice to the 

 merits of our countrymen " is expressly limited to " certain 

 among the French zoologists ;" and two individuals are after- 

 wards named as the aggressors in this particular instance. 

 Two others are (as Mr. Swainson appears to think, unjustly) 

 exonerated from the charge ; and a third, the universally 

 acknowledged head of the school, is praised for his disinter- 

 ested candour. If I were not fearful of encroaching too far 

 upon your space, I would beg of you to transcribe for your 

 readers the paragraphs immediately preceding and following 

 that which I have just quoted. In the first of these they 

 would see that no less than six other French naturalists have 

 received their due meed of praise for their contributions to 

 the history of the original American tapir ; while, in the last, 

 unqualified credit is given to another deserving eleve of the 

 same school for his discovery of a second western species. 

 In fact, nearly every article in the work, from the beginning 

 to the end, teems with acknowledgments to the men of science 

 who have adorned, and still continue to adorn, the French 

 school of zoology, and w^ho have raised it to the height on 

 which it now stands. Under these circumstances, it is, I must 

 confess, altogether startling to me, to find myself involved in 

 a charge of " national invective " against them. 



" The justice or the injustice," says Mr. Swainson, " of 

 this invective against MM. Desmarest and Lesson rests en- 

 tirely upon one simple fact, which their accuser completely 

 passes over. Is there either proof, or presumptive evidence, 

 that these naturalists, at the time they attributed the discovery 



