148 NATURAL HISTORY ESSAYS 



of all mammals ; for when adult, the head and 

 anterior portion of the body and limbs are velvety 

 black, and the sides and hind quarters greyish white. 

 The two colours are so sharply contrasted that the 

 animal appears to have had a cloth thrown over it : 

 hence the name of "saddle-backed tapir" applied 

 to it by wild beast merchants. The hinder aspect 

 of the limbs is covered with very fine hair of a 

 velvety texture.^ In young animals, at any rate, the 

 eye has a double-coloured iris — bluish externally and 

 brown internally. Tapirs under four months old are 

 brownish or black all over, spotted and streaked 

 with brownish yellow above and white below : after 

 attaining the age of four months they begin to 

 assume the adult coloration. Youngsters in this 

 transition state present a curious appearance ; the 

 two types of pattern struggle together, as it were, 

 and remind one of a dissolving view in a magic 

 lantern ! At six months old the young tapir has 

 donned his suit of irreproachable black and white : 

 with advancing age the black deepens, while a 

 delicate pearly bloom softens the grey of the back. 

 A young tapir from Tavoy, Burmah, which Col. F. 

 M. Jenkins presented to the London Zoological 



1 It is interestiiif;' to compare the coloration of tlie Malay tapir with 

 that of the great panda, a black and white beast related to the bear 

 family, discovered in Thibet by P^re David. The panda, however, is 

 mostly white : the eyes are encircled witli black, the ears and limbs are 

 also l)lack, while a sable stripe passes transversely over the shoulder. 

 It is said to l)e mainly herbivorous : but it has been thought that its 

 startling coloration may conceal it from living prey among the black tree 

 trunks on the snow. 



