THE TAPIRS OF SOUTH AMERICA 
353 
the end of the Pleistocene Period, nor does Professor Osborn 
suggest such a mode of origin. The problem, therefore, still 
remains unsolved. Mr. Earle * pointed out that tapir-like 
creatures or tapiroids arose about the same time in Europe 
and North America. In the light of more recent researches 
it would appear that the Eocene Systemodon and Isectolophus 
are confined to North America, while the European tapiroid 
remains belong to the related family Lophiodontidae. The 
true tapirs, to which the American genera belong, do not 
make their appearance in Europe until the Oligocene Period. 
According to Professor Osborn,f the existing Malayan 
tapir is almost identical with the Pliocene tapir of southern 
Europe (T. arvernensis), and I cannot help thinking that the 
genus Tapirus has evolved in the Mediterranean region from 
American ancestors much earlier than is generally supposed, 
the modern tapirs having spread west and east from this centre 
of dispersal at a time when the mid-Atlantic land bridge was 
still in existence. 
If we pass from Ecuador southward along the chain of the 
Andes, we meet with a number of new forms of animal life, 
all of which are more or less confined to this great mountain 
range.’ In certain districts in Peru at high altitudes there 
are immense colonies of curious little squirrel-like rodents 
with very large ears and grey fur of extreme softness. Like 
the prairie-dogs and other North American rodents, these 
chinchillas, as they are called, live in burrows. There is a 
larger kind, too, which has still longer ears and great black 
whiskers, differing sufficiently from Chinchilla to deserve 
recognition as the distinct genus Lagidium. Both genera 
inhabit exclusively the high mountains between Peru and 
Chile. A third member of the same tribe, the viscacha, lives on 
the plains of Argentina, and will be more fully described later 
on. These three genera included in the family Viscaciidae 
(Lagostomidae) have, to judge from their distribution, pro¬ 
bably originated from one or more western ancestors. But 
Dr. Ameghino ^ has described quite a number of genera 
* Earle, C., ‘‘Fossil Mammalia of Europe,” p. 115. 
t Osborn, H. F., “Age of Mammals,” p. 315. 
| Ameghino, FI., “ Formations sedimentaires,” p.428. 
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