South America. 4-61 



Mariquita, 500 or 600 metres above the plains ; the ordinary 

 species being found only upon the latter, and in the valleys. 



At length the unceasing researches of the zealous naturalist 

 were crowned with success. It is customary throughout New 

 Granada, at the octave of the Fete Dieu, to decorate the prin- 

 cipal churches with a kind of grove, in which are placed living 

 or dead birds and quadrupeds, remarkable either for the bril- 

 liancy of their colours, their magnitude, or their monstrosity ; 

 and during this festival, at the village of Bagota, M. Roulin had 

 the gratification of seeing two specimens of the long-sought 

 ^nimal, which had been killed on the Paramo de, Suma Paz, 

 a mountain more elevated than that of Quindiu ; and he afterh 

 wards was fortunate enough to obtain a head, whicli, being coiir 

 veyed to Paris, has been subjected to the inspection of Baron 

 Cuvier. The examination of this great zootomist has revealed 

 a very anomalous and unexpected fact, namely, that the cra- 

 nium of the new species approaches much more nearly ir^ 

 characters to that of the Indian, than of the previously knowp, 

 American, tapir, and still more closely to that of the Palaec^T 

 therium, an extinct genus, the remains of which are found i;j 

 the tertiary beds of the Paris basin. Attached to his memoir, 

 M. Roulin has presented figures of the crania, and thus 

 enumerates their similitudes and differences : — The prin- 

 cipal resemblances between the skulls of the new species and 

 of the Sumatran tapir consist in the general shape of the 

 forehead, the defect of the projection of the parietal crest, the 

 dimension of the nasal bones ; and, finally, the form of the 

 lower jaw, the inferior margin of which is straight (in the 

 Cayenne or South American species it is strongly curved). 

 The differences between the cranium of this animal and of the 

 Palaeotherium are principally remarked in the forehead and 

 nasal bones, which are more depressed in the former; and in 

 the lower jaw, the posterior angle of which is more obtuse: 

 the teeth are smaller, and the grinders do nqt 30,^cj9S^ly 

 approach the canines. .|f for/hi, rn-i 



The principal external peculiarity which distmguishes the 

 new tapir from both its congeners is one that is strictly ac- 

 cordant with its locality in the temperate, or rather cold, alti- 

 tudes of the lofty mountain range which it inhabits. The 

 body is entirely covered with long hair of a blackish brown 

 colour, darker at the points than at the roots ; whereas the 

 other species, which fully share the high temperature of a 

 tropical climate, are almost bare of fur. Its size is inferior 

 to the others : the largest of the specimens seen at Bagota 

 measuring in length, from the muzzle to the point of the tail, 

 only 5 ft. 6J in. ; and in height, at the shoulders, 2 ft. 9 in. 



