1017 



TANGHIN POISON. 



TAPIRUS. 



1018 



now attends and feeds them with activity, being altogether indifferent 

 to that concealment which his gaudy dress seems to require from his 

 natural enemies. So attached to his now interesting brood is the 

 Scarlet Tanager, that he has been known, at all hazards, to follow for 

 half a mile one of his young, submitting to feed it attentively through 

 the bars of a cage, and, with a devotion which despair could not damp, 

 roost by it in the branches of the same tree with its prison." 



The food of this species consists mostly of winged insects, such as 

 wasps, hornets, and wild bees, the smaller kind of beetles, and other 

 Coleoptera. Seeds are supposed to be sometimes resorted to, and they 

 are very fond of whortle and other berries. 



It is in August that the moult of the male ' when he exchanges his 

 nuptial scarlet for the greenish-yellow livery of the female," commences. 

 (' Manual of the Ornithology of the United States and of Canada.') 



TANGHIN POISON. [CERBERA.] 



TANGHI'NIA, a genus of Plants belonging to the natural order 

 Apocynactce. It has an infundibuliform corolla, with a clavate tube, 

 and 5-toothed throat ; the anthers are subsessile. The fruit is a 

 drupe, with a fibrous ligneous putamen or stone, which contains one 

 or two seeds. The specific name, T. venenifera, was given to the 

 plant which yields the poison. It has dense leaves, with erect branches, 

 and paniculated terminal flowers. In its native island this plant attains 

 the size of a tree, and has a hard wood, which may be used for many 

 kinds of carpentery ; but the part which yields the poison is the 

 kernel of the fruK Although this kernel is small, not much larger 

 than an almond, Mr. Telfair eays that it contains enough poison to kill 

 twenty persons. Its great use in Madagascar was as a means of trial, 

 the innocent being supposed able to resist its action, whilst the guilty 

 Buffered under its influence. 



TANGLES. [ALG.S.] 



TANSY. [TANACETUM.] 



TANTALIDjE. [SCOLOPACID.E.] 



TANTALITE. [COUJMBITE.] 



TANTALUS. [ABOU-HANSES ; SCOLOPACID.E.] 



TANYSIPTERA. [HALCYOXID-E.] 



TAP-ROOT. [ROOT.] 



TAPE-WORM. [ENTOZOA.] 



TAPHOZO'US. [CHEIROPTERA.] 



TAPIO'CA. [FOOD; JANIPHA.] 



TAPIRUS, Tapir, the name of a genus of Animals belonging to 

 the family Pachydermata. 



Linnaeus does not notice the Tapir in the 12th (his lat) edition of 

 the 'Systems Niltunc :' but Gmelin quotes it as the ' Hippopotamus 

 ( terrains) pedibua posticis trisulcis." ('Syst. Nat.') 



Cimelin introduces it under the title Tapir, between Hippopotamus 

 and Siu. 



Cuvier arranges the genus as the last of his Pachydermeg Ordinaires, 

 making it immediately succeed the extinct Palaotheria and Lophio- 

 dona. The genus was well known to the older zoologists who wrote 

 on the natural products of America. 



frontal bones : these are early united and directed a little backwards. 

 At the middle of the base of this triangle, to which the bones of 

 the nose are articulated, is a point which penetrates between them ; 

 and from the two sides above tho orbits descends a deep furrow pro- 

 duced by the structure of the upper border of the orbit, and which 

 approaches towards the suborbital hole : it serves for the insertion of 

 the muscles of the proboscis. The orbit descends lower than the 

 mid-height of the head, is very wide, and has the postorbital apophyses 

 but little marked. 



The lower jaw exhibits a striking width at its ascending ramus, 

 and presents a rounded contour backwards at its posterior angle. Its 

 coronoid apophysis elevates itself in the form of a pointed falx above 

 the condyle, which is transverse and large. The two jaws are a little 

 concave laterally at the vacant interval of the teeth, and are very 

 much narrowed there ; their edge is trenchant. 



Skull of American Tapir. 



The lateral apophyses of the ntlas are wide, but little extended 

 outwards ; the spinous process of the axis is an elevated crest ; the 

 transverse processes are small and irregular ; the odontoid is large 

 and obtuse ; the transverse processes of the three succeeding verte- 

 bra; descend obliquely, are a little widened at the end, and cut nearly 

 square ; their spinous processes are very small. The fifth cervical 

 vertebra has a small npophysis on its transverse process, which, for 

 the rest, resembles that of the preceding vertebrae, but is rather 

 longer ; its spinous process is also rather longer ; still more is that of 

 the seventh vertebra, the transverse process of which is very small 

 in short, a simple tubercle. The articular facets of the cervical verte- 

 bras rise obliquely from within outwards, so that the articular facet 

 of one vertebra is below that which responds to the preceding 

 vertebra. The bodies of the vertebra; are convex forward and con- 

 cave behind, an organisation which is more or less repeated in the 

 rest of the spine. The number of dorsal vertebrae amounts to twenty ; 

 the spinous apophysis of the second is the longest. They decrease 

 and incline backwards to the eleventh, from which they become 



Skeleton of American Tapir. 



When viewed in profile, the pyramidal elevation of the skull of the 

 Tapir, calling to mind what is to bo seen in the hog, strikes the 

 observer forcibly. But the pyramid of the Tapir differs from that of 

 the hog in having only three faces ; and also in this, that its anterior 

 line is formed by the meeting of the lateral faces, and it is only 

 towards the front that it is dilated into a triangle, which is due to the 



straight, square, and nearly equal. Their articular apophyses are so 

 fitted that those of one vertebra are in advance and above those which 

 correspond with it in the vertebra below. Cuvier found twenty pairs 

 of ribs in one individual, nineteen in another, eight of which are true, 

 all slender and rounded for the greatest part of their length. The 

 breast-bone is composed of five bones; its anterior portion ia com- 



