THE COMMON AMERICAN TAPIR. 4<21 



but it is partial to wet places and the borders of rivers, being 

 fond of /bathing. Sometimes it enters the water deliberately, 

 and swims on the surface ; at other times, especially when in 

 danger, it plunges in, and walks along the bottom, totally 

 immersed for at least a couple of minutes, and then rises to the 

 surface to breathe, and having done so, either dives down again 

 or swims. M. de la Borde, says, " When they have taken 

 refuge in the water, it is not easy to draw them out; and 

 although they are of a gentle and quiet disposition, they become 

 dangerous when wounded. They have been known to throw 

 themselves on the canoe whence the injury came, and endeavour 

 to overturn it for revenge. It is requisite also to beware of 

 them in the forests ; there, they make paths, or rather beaten 

 tracks, of tolerable breadth, by repeatedly going to and fro 

 (for they are in the habit of passing and repassing always in 

 the same places) -, and these paths, from which the animals 

 never deviate, are to be avoided, for they move briskly on, and, 

 without intending mischief, they dash violently against every 

 thing in their way. The districts bordering the upper parts 

 of the rivers in Guiana are inhabited by great numbers of 

 tapirs, and the banks of the waters are intersected by paths 

 which they wear j and so beaten are they, that the most desert 

 places appear, at first sight, as if frequented by human beings. 

 A traveller nearly fell a victim to his ignorance respecting their 

 tracks; for about ten o'clock in the evening while lying in his 

 hammock, which he had unwittingly suspended from two trees 

 growing on one of these beaten paths, he heard a loud noise 

 occasioned by a tapir on its route, and he had only just time 

 to throw himself out. The animal rushed past, tossing the 

 hammock into the branches, and bruising the traveller who 

 stood against a tree. Then, without turning aside from its 

 path, it passed through the midst of some negroes who were 

 sleeping on the ground near a large fire, but without doing 

 them any injury." 



The animal may be readily tamed. Sonnini says, that nume- 

 rous tame individuals roam at liberty through the streets of 



