South America. 459 



history, hitherto believed to relate to a merely fabulous ani- 

 mal, but appends to it a very ingenious speculation upon the 

 me of the Chinese and the griffin of the ancients ; the origin 

 of both which supposed imaginary monsters, the learned 

 author endeavours to trace to exaggerated portraitures of the 

 beast which forms the subject of his essay. 



M. Roulin prefaces the account of his discovery with a 

 few observations upon the first published descriptions of the 

 common South American tapir. Although the tapir was im- 

 perfectly known in Europe at the commencement of the 16th 

 century, Marcgrave was the first writer who gave a complete 

 and concise history of the animal, erring only in attributing 

 to it ten (instead of six) incisive teeth in each jaw : and BuffiDn, 

 even after he had received a specimen from Cayenne, which 

 was dissected in the Jardin du Roi, relying too much upon 

 the faith of the Saxon naturalist, allowed the error to remain. 

 The credit of discovering the Indian or Malay species is 

 claimed by M. Roulin for MM. Diard and Duvaucel : but 

 the animal was noticed, according to Mr. Griffith, as early as 

 1772; and it appears that the first detailed account of a living 

 specimen at Barrackpore was given by the lamented Sir Stam- 

 ford Raffles. [See this question discussed in detail in Mr. Swain- 

 son's Defence of certain French Naturalists, in our Vol. IV. 

 p. 101.; and in the replies to that article, Vol. IV. p. 200. 

 205. and 316.] 



During several months' journey along the course of the 

 Andes, the attention of M. Roulin appears to have been 

 drawn towards the probability of discovering a peculiar species 

 of tapir in the lofty regions of the mountains, by the vague 

 yet universal reports of the native Indians and Spanish settlers, 

 who appear to confound under the title o^ pinchaque (phantom 

 or spectre), at least two animals either real or imaginary ;. one 

 of which M. Roulin believes to be his new species of tapir; 

 and the other, it is surmised by Cuvier, may possibly prove 

 to be the Mastodon, if that gigantic link between the fossil 

 and the recent world be indeed still in existence. The Indians 

 of many villages near Popayan speak of an enormous animal, 

 which dwells in the mountains by which their valley is bor- 

 dered to the east. This animal is to them an object of fear, 

 and at the same time of respect ; for, prior to the introduction 

 of Christianity among their tribes, they believed in a kind of 

 metempsychosis [transmigration of souls from one body to 

 another], thinking that the souls of their ancient chiefs had 

 passed into the bodies of the pinchaques ; and when one of 

 these creatures appeared, they considered that it came to 

 avert some approaching calamity, with which their descend- 



