198 ZOOLOGICAL GARDENS, 
tells us that the number of molars in the lower jaw is 
seven, as in the upper. M. Desmarest repeats this 
assertion in his Mammalogie, and again in the Diction- 
naire des Sciences Naturelles, but confining it in the 
latter place to the American species. M. Cuvier, in his 
Régne Animal, probably by a typographical error, which 
is, however, reproduced in the new edition of that work, 
is made to say that the number of molars in the Tapirs 
is twenty-seven. We believe that the statement given 
above will be found to be correct with respect to all the 
species. It is that of M. Cuvier in his excellent oste- 
ology of the American Tapir, of Sir Everard Home in 
the Philosophical Transactions, of M. Roulin in his late 
Memoir, and of all the authors, from Major Farquhar 
downwards, who have spoken of the dentition of the 
Asiatic species. We have ourselves observed the fact 
in a skull from Sumatra in the Museum of the College 
of Surgeons; but that of the American species in the 
same collection not being fully adult has only six 
cheek-teeth developed in the upper and five in the lower 
jaw. In a still younger specimen, formerly living in 
the Gardens of the Society, of the anatomy of which 
Mr. Yarrell has given many interesting particulars in 
the fourth volume of the Zoological Journal, the number 
of molars already protruded amounted to no more than 
four in the upper jaw and three in the lower; but the 
rudiment of a fifth was discovered in the former on the 
removal of a portion of the bone, and the very imma- 
ture age of the animal sufficiently accounts for the 
apparent deficiency. Both these instances, it will be 
observed, tend to confirm the opinion that in the Ame- 
rican as in the Indian species the lower jaw has one 
molar tooth less than the upper. 
In their general osteology the Tapirs appear to bear 
a more close resemblance to the Rhinoceros than to any 
