418 THE TAPIR. 



of " ai." Hence the three-toed sloth has obtained the name 

 of the ai. 



Mr. Bates says that the natives consider the sloth the type 

 of laziness, and that it is very common for one native to call 

 another — reproaching him for idleness — '' beast of the cecropia 

 tree ;" the leaves of the cecropia being the food of the sloth. 

 "It is a strange sight/' he adds, " watching the creature's 

 movements from branch to branch. Every movement betrays 

 not indolence, but extreme caution. It never loses its hold of 

 one branch without catching the next ; and when it does not 

 immediately find a branch to grasp with the rigid hooks which 

 serve it for paws, it raises its body, supported by its hind-legs 

 and claws, and feels round in search of a fresh foothold." In 

 one of their voyages, he and Mr. Wallace saw a sloth (Brady- 

 pus infuscatus) swimming across a river, at a place where it 

 was probably three hundred yards broad. It is not gener- 

 ally known that this animal takes to the water. 



THE TAPIR. 



Throughout the densely-wooded regions on the banks of 

 the rivers from Demerara, across the Brazils, to Paraguay, the 

 long-nosed tapir has its range. It and the peccary are the 

 only two Pachydermata, or thick-skinned animals, indigenous 

 to the southern continent. It is considered one of the links 

 which connect the elephant and rhinoceros to the swine ; its 

 habits, indeed, are somewhat similar to those animals. 



Six feet in length, and four in height, it is the largest 

 quadruped in South America. In form it is somewhat like 

 the hog ; but its snout is lengthened into a flexible proboscis, 

 which resembles the rudiment of the elephant's trunk, and 

 serves for the same purpose — that of twisting round the 



