TA 



among 1 the ruminants ; and it is not a little curious 

 that these two anomalous families, of different orders, 

 should have their native localities near, or somewhat 

 resembling, each other, and that they should be used 

 for nearly similar purposes by man should be the 

 " beasts of burden " by way of eminence. Such, 

 however, is the fact ; and it is a fact, the investigation 

 of which is far from being unimportant, only it is in- 

 consistent with our present object, and incompatible 

 with our limits. 



The tapir is a genus which stands at a break in 

 the series, and with it the pachydermata, if we begin 

 them with the elephant, may be said to terminate. 

 It may be taken up from the rhinoceros, with which 

 the tapirs have more characters in common than 

 with any of the rest. But even here there is a wide 

 difference, and some lost genera come in between, as 

 well as the living genus Hyrax, which is very 

 different in its habitat. The last ones appear to 

 approach more nearly both to the rhinoceros and the 

 tapir. 



One of the selast ones is the Palceotherium, which 

 appears to have been at one time very plentiful in 

 Europe, as there are about a dozen fossil species in 

 the Paris basin only. Some of these are equal in 

 size that is, from their skeletons they must have 

 equalled in size the rhinoceros of the present day, 

 while others could not have been larger than small 

 sheep. They occur in great numbers in the calca- 

 reous deposits, and their accompaniments being 

 fresh-water shells, and other aquatic remains obvi- 

 ously not marine, show that they must have inhabited 

 the shores of lakes, or other banks of slowly-flowing 

 rivers. They had the teeth very like those of the 

 tapirs, and, like them, they must have had the muzzle 

 drawn out into a fleshy and flexible snout, as the 

 places for the insertion of the muscles for the moving 

 of such a snout are quite obvious on the bones. 

 They had a toe fewer on each fore-foot than the 

 tapirs, and differed from them in many minor parti- 

 culars ; so that, though their haunts and habits must 

 have been similar, they could not have been exactly 

 the same. The other last genus, Lophiodon, had the 

 teeth different, formed into transverse elevations in 

 the lower jaws, which is evidence of these having 

 to bruise more stubborn food than the preceding 

 species. 



Our present business, however, is with the tapirs, 

 of which, as of very many of the pachydermata, there 

 are remains of fossil species in places where there 

 have been no living native ones within the period of 

 recorded history. The generic characters of the 

 tapirs are as follow : six incisive teeth, two canines, 

 and fourteen grinders, in each jaw, the latter equal in 

 number above and below ; the intermediate incisive 

 teeth smaller than the lateral ones, and thus giving 

 them something the appearance of additional canines ; 

 the canines of moderate size, with a space between 

 them and the cheek-teeth, the latter with two trans- 

 verse riders on their crowns ; the jaws are long, and 

 the mouth is thus simply furnished with all the three 

 kinds of teeth, which indicates that the animal must 

 have corresponding labour in eating ; the mouth is a 

 ragged, or what we would call an " ugly mouth," 

 capable of bruising very hard and tough substances ; 

 there is, however, nothing of a murderous or carni- 

 vorous character about it ; but the three kinds of 

 teeth complete, always in the absence of any thing 

 carnivorous, indicate a miscellaneous feeder, of which 

 the common hog is a familiar instance ; the nose of 



FIR. . 781 



the tapir is elongated, forming a moveable proboscis, 

 but not a prehensile one, like that of the elephant, 

 and proportionally much smaller than in that animal ; 

 the eyes, as in most of the order, and in all the long- 

 snouted ones, are very small, and the ears of mode- 

 rate length, erect, and moveable ; the fore feet have 

 four toes each, and the hind feet three, with a small 

 hoot' on the extremity of each toe, the hoofs rather 

 pointed, and divergent, but not in the least resembling 

 claws ; the tail is very short, and the hind part of 

 the body droops much to its insertion ; the skin is 

 very thick and strong, forming slight folds or wrinkles 

 on the flanks and some of the parts, and it is thinly 

 covered with very short hair, which lies flat, and 

 shows the whole form of the animal ; that form is 

 heavy, and the expression is dull and stupid, and in- 

 dicative of nothing that can be called spirit. It 

 partakes a little of the horse, of the hog, and of the 

 rhinoceros, but it has not much likeness to any of 

 them. The females agree with those of the horse 

 and the rhinoceros, in having two mammae situated 

 in the groin, but no neutral ones like the hog. There 

 are considerable differences between the two species, 

 as we might be prepared to expect from their habitats 

 being so wide asunder. 



AMERICAN TAPIR (T. Amerifnvi\ When full 

 grown, this species is about the size of an ordinary 

 donkey, and, small as it is, it is the largest of the 

 land mammalia of the rich and humid places of South 

 America. The head is very thick and clumsy, ele- 

 vated at the occiput, and bearing in the profile some 

 slight resemblance to that of a hog, but without any 

 of the energy which is characteristic of that animal 

 in the wild state, or of the intelligence which it has 

 when domesticated and well attended to. The eyes 

 are very small, and the trunk of the nose is much 

 smaller than that of the hog, and its motion is more 

 feeble, and of a different character. The cartilaginous 

 point only of the hog's snout has motion on the 

 peculiar bone, but that of the tapir can move a little 

 both downwards and laterally. It has not action 

 enough for actually seizing any substance, but it may 

 assist the animal in opening up a passage among the 

 thick and tangled vegetation. It is not used in 

 rooting in the ground, and it is not adapted for it. 

 It has no cartilaginous termination, but is almost 

 entirely composed of muscles. The body of the 

 animal is thick and clumsy ; the tail is very short 

 and straight, ending abruptly, as if it were a stump ; 

 the colour varies from blackish-brown to brown, 

 with a shade of dull fawn colour. The covering of 

 the body, as was said, is smooth, but the male has 

 the trace of a mane along the ridge of the neck. 



This tapir is pretty generally distributed over the 

 rich humid and shady parts of tropical America, but 

 it is nowhere very abundant ; and it is so dull and 

 unsocial in its manners, that it is rarely seen even 

 in those places where it occurs most frequently. It 

 is not fond of the company of its own species, like 

 the greater number of the pachydermata, never more 

 than a pair being seen together, and rarely more than 

 a single individual. It is very much of a nocturnal, 

 or, at all events, of a twilight animal, in its feeding, 

 and dozes away the greater part of the day, sleeping 

 in the shade of the close sprays near the streams, 

 from which habit; and the obscure colour of its body, 

 one may pass close to it without being aware that it 

 is there. In the night it comes abroad, and feeds on 

 wild fruits and other pulpy and succulent vegetables, 

 if it can find them. If they are not to be had, it is 



