252 



Fam. 1. TAPIRIDiE. 



Nose produced into a short proboscis. Toes two or three, sub- 

 equal, all reaching the ground, without any prehensile process on 

 the upper edge, nail short ; each with a separate hoof. Face not 

 horned. Neck short. Cutting-teeth in each jaw, erect, normal. 



Tapirina, Gray, List Mamni. B. M. p. 184. 

 Tapiridffi, Gray, P. Z. S. 1867, p. 877. 

 iSIiutimgula geuuina, Giehel, Siiugeth. p. 177. 

 Ouguligrades, Blautville. 



Mr. Sclater has kindly presented to the Museum the skull of an 

 adult Baird's Tapir from Central America, which had been sent to 

 him by Capt. Dow ; and more lately Mr. SaMn has obtained for 

 the Museum the skin and the skull of a half-grown specimen of 

 the same animal. Thus we have the skull of this interesting genus 

 in two very distinct states of development. Mr. Sclater has also 

 kindly shown me a photograph of the very young animal, in its 

 spotted and banded state, which is on its way to the Gardens of the 

 Society. These materials have enabled me to study this very inter- 

 esting animal in considerable detail. To understand its characters 

 more completely I have compared the skuU with the series of skulls 

 of Tapirs in the British Museum and in the Museum of the College 

 of Surgeons, and with the figures of the skulls to be found in Cuvier's 

 ' Ossemens Fossiles ' and De Blainville's ' Osteographie.' 



These examinations have enabled me to point out the craniological 

 cliaracters by which the species may be distinguished, and also to 

 record the differences which occur in the skulls of the different kinds 

 as the animal passes fi-om youth to adult age. 



These researches have induced me to believe that one of the skuUs 

 of Tapirs in the British Museum indicates the existence of a South- 

 American species that has not yet been observed in the living state. 



This is not extraordinary when we recollect that the Tapir of 

 Central America, which belongs to a peculiar group, was not dis- 

 tinguished from the common Tapir until the very peculiar formation 

 of its skull was observed and figured. 



There is a peculiarity in the change of the teeth of the Tapirs 

 which I do not find noticed in Owen's ' Odontographia,' or in De 

 BlainviUe's ' Osteographie,' or in any work that has occiu'red to me. 

 In most mammalia the second series of the cutting-teeth are deve- 

 loped rather within the base of the milk series ; but in the Tapirs 

 they are developed so far within their hinder edge that, when the 

 milk scries are about to be shed and the permanent series are just 

 about being developed, there are two distinct series of apertures to 

 be observed in the intermaxillaries and the front edge of the lower 

 jaw. 



