196 ZOOLOGICAL GARDENS, 
who has enriched zoology with so important a disco- 
very,” and attributes the “honour” to him “ alone.” 
Baron Cuvier too, in the recent edition of his Régne 
Animal, silently rejects the unmerited distinction in 
favour of his step-son and friend, and candidly quotes, 
as the first describer, our, in this instance, more fortu- 
nate countryman. After this we trust that we shall 
hear no more of the “ discovery” of the Indian Tapir 
by MM. Diard and Duvaucel, who have too many real 
claims on the consideration of zoologists to require to 
be tricked out in those borrowed plumes with which it 
has hitherto been the fashion among our neighbours to 
invest them. 
But it is not in the East alone that a remarkable 
addition has been made to this singular genus. Within 
the course of the last year M. Roulin has laid before 
the French Academy the description, accompanied by 
figures, of a new species discovered by him in America, 
and inhabiting the mountainous parts of the same dis- 
tricts of which the older species frequents the plains. 
A full account of this interesting discovery, with illus- 
trative figures, has since been given in the Annales des 
Sciences Naturelles; and a careful comparison of the 
different races seems to prove that the Tapir of the 
mountains is not merely specifically distinct from that 
of the plains, but that it is even much more closely 
allied, in its osteology at least, to the oriental species 
just noticed. We are therefore warranted in considering 
the genus as at present composed of three species, two 
American and one Asiatic. Of the latter, as well as of 
a young animal of the race which forms the subject of 
the present article, stuffed specimens are preserved in 
the Society’s Museum. 
The distinctive characters of this remarkable group 
may be enumerated as follows. It forms part of the 
