1870.] MR. SCLATER ON TAPIRUS ROULINI. 51 
January 27, 1870. 
Professor Newton, V.P., in the Chair. 
Mr. Sclater read extracts from several letters addressed to him by 
Mr. Robert B. White, C.M.Z.S., concerning the Hairy Tapir (Zapi- 
rus roulini*), specimens of which Mr. White was endeavouring to 
procure for the Society’s Menagerie. In a letter dated Popayan, 
8th June, 1869, Mr. White wrote as follows :— 
“During the past two months I have been several times on the 
central Cordillera, to the Volcano of Puracé and elsewhere, and have 
thought that it would be highly interesting to the Society to get 
specimens of the Tapir which is found there. Boussingault speaks 
of it, 1 think; but owing to the stupidity of the natives, the tales 
told about the animal are so absurd as to throw discredit on its ex- 
istence. They are very shy, and I have not been able to get near 
them, but have seen them at a distance of half a mile, with a tele- 
scope, bathing themselves in a small lake. I have also seen the foot- 
prints, the excrement, and the skins occasionally brought in by the 
Indians. From this I can say that this Tapir is about the size of 
the ordinary one, greyish black, with very powerful snout and hoofs. 
It is never found at a lower elevation than 3500 metres above the 
sea-level, where the temperature is 6° to 10° Cent., and it exists up 
to 4200 metres. It would therefore be easy to acclimatize it in Eng- 
land ; for it constantly freezes in the Cordillera at 4000 metres. These 
animals are rarely killed, because the skin only sells for about 3s. ; 
but last week I bought a Bear’s skin from an Indian, who some- 
times kills Tapirs.” 
Mr. Sclater remarked that this Tapir was a very rare animal, and 
that he believed that there was no complete specimen of it in any 
European collectiont. It appeared to have been first discovered, 
about 1828, by Dr. Roulin, during his residence at Bogota{, on the 
Paramos of Quindiu and Suma Paz. A second French naturalist, 
M. Justin Goudot, who was in New Granada about 1842, had given 
us some particulars concerning the life and habits of this Tapir in a 
memoir published in the ‘Comptes Rendus’ of the Academy of 
Sciences of Paris (vol. xvi. p. 331, 1843). M. Goudot met with the 
animal at an elevation of from 1400 metres to 4400 metres (being 
nearly up to the snow-level) on the Peak of Tolima. 
The only other original authority that mentioned this animal was 
* The first Latin specific name applied to this Tapir appears to be roulini of 
Fischer (Syn. Mamm. Add. p. 406), 1829. Wagler’s term v2/losus (Syst. d. Amph. 
p- 17) is one year later; and the earlier French writers merely call the animal 
Tapir pinchaque. 
+ [In reply to inquiries, M. Alphonse Milne-Edwards kindly informs me that 
the collection of the Jardin des Plantes includes only two crania of this Tapir— 
one obtained by M. Roulin in 1828, and the other by M. Goudot in 1843.— 
Ly Lise 
{ See Cuyier’s report on M. Roulin’s memoir (Ann. Sci. Nat. xvii. p. 107), 
and M. Roulin’s memoir itself (Ann. Sci. Nat. xviii. p. 26). 
