FOSSIL HIPPOPOTAMUS. 251 



with the dugong.% Two fossil species have been ascer- 

 tained by Cuvier. The one, which is the largest, is so 

 very nearly allied to the species at present living on the 

 surface of the earth, that it is difficult to determine whe- 

 ther or not it is not the same. Its fossil remains have 

 been found in alluvial soil in France and Italy. The se- 

 cond fossil species, and the smallest, the animal not be- 

 ing larger than a hog, is well characterized, and is entire- 

 ly different from any of the existing species of quadru- 

 peds. 



Tapir. 



The tapir is an animal peculiar to the new world, and 

 has hitherto been found only in South America. Yet 

 two fossil species of this genus have been discovered in 



* " Hippopotamus, Kiida-ayer. The existence of this quadruped in 

 the island of Sumatra having been questioned by M. Cuvier, and not 

 having myself actually seen it, I think it necessary to state, that the 

 immediate authority upon which I included it in the list of animals 

 found there, was a drawing made by M. Whalfeldt, an officer employ- 

 ed in a survey of the coast, who had met with it at the mouth of one 

 of the southern rivers, and transmitted the sketch along with his report 

 to the government, of which I was then secretary. Of its general 

 resemblance to that well-known animal there could be no^loubt. M. 

 Cuvier suspects that I may have mistaken it for the animal called by 

 naturalists the dugong, and vulgarly the sea-cow, which will be 

 hereafter mentioned ; and it would indeed be a grievous error, to mis- 

 take for a beast with four legs, a fish with two pectoral fins, serving 

 the purposes of feet ; but independently of *the authority I have stated, 

 the kuda-ayer, or river horse, is familiarly known to the natives, as is 

 also the duyong (from which Malayan word the dugong of naturalists 

 -has been corrupted) ; and I have only to add, that in a register given 

 by the Philosophical Society of Batavia, in the first volume of their 

 Transactions, for 1799, appears the article, * conda aijetr, rivier paard, 

 hippopotamus,' amongst the animals of Java." MARSDEN'S History 

 of Sumatra, 3d edit. p. 116. 117, 



