18:3 PACHYDERMATOUS WATER TRESPASSERS. 



paddling about in their drinking trough, and splashing 

 the water over themselves, in default of a regular 

 bath. 



The animal is most useful to the aborigines, who 

 eat its flesh, and employ its singularly tough skin for 

 many useful purposes. 



The flesh is, as a rule, tough and stringy; but the 

 jaws of a savage are equal to the mastication of any 

 sort of meat, however tough. 



It is not so welcome, however, to the civilised 

 colonists and agriculturists. It has the good taste 

 to prefer grain and garden crops to the wild and com- 

 paratively coarse vegetation of its native country, and 

 is rather apt to make great havoc in fields and gardens. 

 Unless cultivated grounds are very strongly fenced, 

 the Tapir will be sure to enter them. Trusting to its 

 great weight to break down the fence, and to its 

 tough skin to keep it from harm, it rushes against the 

 enclosure, and, if it should force its way through the 

 barrier, does infinite harm by treading down as well 

 as eating the crops. 



Like the capybara, which inhabits the same rivers, 

 the Tapir is a wonderful adept at hiding among the 

 reeds and foliage of the river- bank. Generally, it 

 lies so concealed through the day, and is so well 

 hidden, that a practised eye is required to detect it. 

 Indeed, so well hidden is the animal, in spite of its 

 large size, that a traveller has often been startled 

 while walkirg along the banks of a stream, by the 

 sudden rush of a Tapir into the water ; the animal 

 having been almost at his very feet before it would 

 move. 



