Common Tapir 385 



symmetry to the middle line of the foot which, among other characters, 

 shows that the tapirs belong to the group of odd-toed ungulate, or hooted, 

 mammals, of which the rhinoceroses and horses are the only other living 

 representatives. The ancestors of this group must, ot course, once have 

 possessed five toes to each foot, and the retention of four toes in the fore- 

 foot of the tapirs serves to show how the change from a five-toed to a 

 three-toed type has been gradually effected. The modern horses represent 

 the extreme modification of this type of foot-structure, in which the hoots 

 are reduced to a single large and symmetrical one on each foot. 



To revert to the special characteristics of the tapirs, it may be added 

 that the nostrils are situated at the extremity of the short and mobile 

 proboscis ; and that the eyes are rather small and pig-like. The thick and 

 smooth hide is more or less thinly covered with short hair, which in some 

 species may become very scanty indeed as age advances. The adults ot 

 all the four American species are more or less completely unitorm dark 

 brown or blackish in colour ; but the young of at least three are striped 

 and spotted with yellowish white, which was probably the original type of 

 coloration of the group at all stages of life. Into the structure of the skull 

 and other portions of the skeleton it will be unnecessary to enter on this 

 occasion. But it may be mentioned that the cheek-teeth are of a compara- 

 tively simple type of structure, with low crowns ; those ot the lower 

 jaw carrying a pair of transverse ridges, while in those of the upper 

 jaw a nearly similar pair of ridges, or cross crests, are connected by a 

 longitudinal wall on the outer side of the crown. The canines, or tusks, 

 are of moderate size. The total number of teeth is forty-two, there being 

 one pair less of cheek-teeth in the lower than in the upper jaw. 



The common American tapir was described in 1766 by the Swedish 

 naturalist Linnsus as a species of land hippopotamus, with the title ot 

 Wppopotannu terrestris. When assigned to a separate genus — Tapir us — 

 of which all the members are land animals, it was felt that the name 



3 D 



