THE RHINOCEROS FAMILY. 321 



into the forests, but return again in the evening to the house in which they are kipt and fed. The 

 Tapir is capable of considerable attachment to its owner, and possibly, by care and attention, might 



be turned to good account, as the qualities with which it is credited strength, docility, and patience 



ought to render it capable of the duties of a beast of burden. 



THE HAIRY TAPIR,* the second species of American Tapir, inhabits the inner range of the 

 Cordilleras, this species being strictly mountainous in its habits. 



It is stated to differ from the other species of America by not possessing a mane ; but has 

 altogether longer hair, and there are no wrinkles on the proboscis. In the conformation of the skull 

 and general characteristics it more nearly resembles the Asiatic Tapir than the American, and is less 

 common than the latter animal. 



THE MALAYAN TAPIR. t The Asiatic Tapir, which appears to have become known to Europeans 

 only in. the present century at least, the first certain information of it reached Europe in the 

 year 1816 is an inhabitant of Sumatra, Malacca, and the south-west provinces of China. It is said to 

 have been found also in Borneo. In size it is larger than either T. americamts or T. mllosus. It is 

 distinguished by the absence of a mane, the genei-al colour of the hair being glossy black, but with the 

 back, rump, and sides of the belly white. 



In its habits the Asiatic Tapir appears to be similar to his American cousin, and in captivity it 

 is said to be of a most mild and inoffensive disposition, becoming as tractable and familiar as a Dog. 



FOSSIL TAPIRS. The living Tapir is known at the present day only in the warmer regions of the 

 New and Old Worlds, in South America, and in the East. In the Pleistocene Age, however, it is 

 proved to have ranged far up the valley of the Mississippi in the United States. In the Miocene 

 and Pliocene Ages the animal inhabited Europe, and its fossil teeth are met with by no means 

 unfrequently in the Crag deposits of Norfolk and Suffolk. The Lophiodon of the European and 

 American Eocenes is also a closely allied form. 



III. THE RHINOCEROS FAMILY (RHINOCEROTID^E). 



The Rhinoceroses form the third family of the sub-order of Perissodactyla. They are to be found 

 in Africa south of the Sahara Desert, and in Eastern Asia in India, Java, and Sumatra, &c. , where 

 the climate is tropical or sub-tropical. They are represented by several living species, as well as by 

 several extinct forms which ranged, in the later Tertiary times, over nearly the whole of Europe and 

 Northern Asia. The principal characters which are to be observed in the Rhinoceros are the large 

 unwieldy bodies, supported on short, stout legs, terminating in a large callous pad with hoof-bearing 

 toes, the large and long head, the small eyes and ears, and the short tail. All the living species 

 also possess one or two horns, which are placed in the middle line of the head on and above the nose. 

 The horns are to be viewed as a mere appendage to the skin, like hair, for they are only skin deep, 

 and are composed of a series of fibres matted together, and are essentially a mass of hair in 

 which each hair is confluent with those next to it. Horns were present also in all the fossil 

 species excepting one, the Aceratherium, the hornless Rhinoceros of the Miocene Age. The skin 

 in all the Rhinoceroses is very thick, and is converted into a jointed armour in some of the Asiatic 

 species ; it is also scantily covered with hair, except in " the Hairy-eared Rhinoceros." A fossil kind 

 was woolly. 



It is a disputed point whether the woi'd Reem, mentioned several times in the Bible, and 

 translated in the authorised version as Unicorn, is the Rhinoceros or the Urus ; the probability seems 

 to be that the latter is intended. The first time Reem is mentioned in the Bible is in Numbers xxiii. 

 verses 21, 22, to the following effect: "The Lord his God is with him, and the shout of a king is 

 among them. God brought them out of Egypt ; he hath as it were the strength of Reem." Whatever 

 animal Reem may have been, it was a creature evidently of great power, and the strongest known to 

 the prophet. In another passage Deut. xxxiii. verses 16, 17 we obtain the information that Reem 

 was a two-homed and not a one-horned animal, and therefore could not possibly have been the Indian 

 Rhinoceros at least, and that it is mentioned at the same time with Bullocks. Other passages speak 



* Tapirus villosus. \ Tapirus malayanus. 



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