156 On a New Species of' Tapir. 



Roulin's memoir. He pointed out especially the anatomical 

 characters which distinguish the new species of tapir from the 

 old American species, as well as that of Sumatra ; and insisted 

 particularly upon the remark, that the new tapir has a much 

 greater resemblance to the palaeotherium than to any of the two 

 species formerly known. 



The head of the tapir of the Andes, as well as that of the 

 Indian tapir, are more like that of the palfeotherium than the 

 head of the common tapir is. 



The palaeotherium, in its general conformation, principally 

 differs from the tapirs in having a more elongated skull, and in 

 its jaws being shorter in that part destitute of teeth, which is 

 named the bar, and which exists in these two genera as well as 

 in horses. The pala?otheriums, lophiodons, tapirs, and horses, 

 form in this respect, as in many others, four closely allied ge- 

 nera, and in some measure a small family, in the order of pa- 

 chydermata. 



" Let it not, however, be thought," continued M. Cuvier, 

 that there is the smallest reason for supposing a metamorphosis 

 of this antediluvian genus of palaeotheria into the tapirs of our 

 present world. The grinders of these genera do not resemble 

 each other, and their differences are even very great. In many 

 other details of their osteology, they equally differ, and the ta- 

 pirs have on the fore foot a toe more than the pal^otheriums. 

 Now, in the whole history of animals, there is no fact disco- 

 vered from which it might be inferred that any changes of 

 food, air, or temperature, could have produced sensible varia- 

 tions in the forms of the teeth, the deepest mark perhaps which 

 Nature has impressed upon her works. 



Without doubt, by transporting one's self to times and spaces, 

 respecting which we can have no positive knowledge, he may, 

 from vague and arbitrary premises, draw conclusions which are 

 not less so ; but to emerge from these general considerations on 

 which reasoning has no hold, to say distinctly and directly such 

 an animal of the present world has descended in a right line 

 from such an antediluvian animal, and to prove it by legitimate 

 facts and indications, this is what it would be necessary to do, 

 and what, in the present state of our knowledge, no one would 

 even dare to attempt. M. Roulin does not propose the hypo- 



