154 NATURAL HISTORY ESSAYS 



very badly in zoological gardens, even when they 

 are provided with a daily bath. They seem to be 

 particularly subject to intestinal diseases : a Brazilian 

 tapir in the Philadelphia Gardens died of chronic 

 enteritis, followed by the telescoping of nine inches 

 of the ileum in the caecum. Probably in most of these 

 cases the feedinor Js wronp" : one seldom if ever sees 



o o 



captive tapirs allowed the twigs of trees and bushes 

 natural to them, and the hay given may set up fermen- 

 tation in the stomach, with resultant gastric catarrh. 

 Many do not last even twelve months, and the writer 

 is acquainted with one instance where the animal — 

 perhaps injured in capture — barely survived for four 

 weeks his arrival in London. Therefore it was 

 hardly a surprise to find on revisiting the collection, 

 where the two-year old tapir had been inspected and 

 photographed but a few weeks before, that the cage 

 was tenanted by another animal : the tapir had been 

 gathered to his fathers. 



