46 FIELD MUSEUM OF NATURAL HISTORY ZOOLOGY, VOL. X. 



Tayassu torvum Bangs. Collared Peccary. 



Two specimens, Maracaibo. 



Peccaries are fairly common in the vicinity of Maracaibo, but al- 

 though many tracks and at least one adult animal were seen, no speci- 

 mens were obtained except two little ones only a few days old which 

 were purchased alive in Maracaibo. These were led into my hotel 

 room one morning trotting at the end of a string like a pair of puppies. 

 I kept them alive for a few days in a corner of the room screened off 

 by a woven wire bed spring. This was not altogether sufficient and 

 had to be covered at the top, for much to my surprise, the little squealers 

 were able to climb over. They would get in the angle, put their backs 

 against the wall and their little hoofs in the meshes of wire and quickly 

 scramble to the top and leap three and a half feet to the floor. At 

 other times they did not seriously object to being handled, but when 

 stopped in these attempts to escape, they snapped viciously with their 

 tiny needle-pointed tusks. I gave them a plate of milk, but although I 

 rubbed their noses in it and otherwise forced it upon them, it was some 

 time before they understood it, although squealing with hunger all the 

 while. Finally the larger more active one managed to suck up a little 

 but the other seemed content to stand in the plate or to slide around in 

 the milk spilled on the floor, constantly getting tangled up in his own 

 umbilicus which dragged after him. Later they learned to eat rolled 

 oats and water and sopped around in it with contented little grunts, 

 which were much more agreeable than the plaintive squealing with 

 which they had introduced themselves.- 



The color of these young peccaries, which were eventually made 

 into specimens, is bright rufescent tawny thinly mixed with black, 

 except a line from the occiput to the rump which is intense, sharply 

 defined black. 



The use of the name torvum for these specimens is necessarily provis- 

 ional, since they are much too young for satisfactory identification. 



Local name Bdquiro. 



Tapirus terrestris Linnaeus. Tapir. 



One specimen (skull), Empalado Savannas. 



Contrary to our expectations, tapirs were found in relatively arid 

 lowlands in regions of rather thin forest and little plant life of a succu- 

 lent character. Tracks were seen in the sandy bottom of a dry quebrada 

 a few miles west of El Guayabal near Cucuta, Colombia, and numerous 

 others in a somewhat similar place in the Empalado Savannas east of 



