212 



GEOGRAPHICAL ZOOLOGY. 



[part IV. 



by several species in the riiocenc of North America, while in 

 Europe it occurs both in the Older Pliocene and Upper Miocene. 

 Various other allied forms, in which the lateral toes are more 

 and more developed, and most of which are now classed in a dis- 

 tinct family, Anchitheridpe, range back througli tlie Miocene to 

 the Eocene period. A sufficient account of these has already 

 been given in vol. i. cliap. vi. p. 1?)5, to which the reader is 

 referred for the supposed origin and migrations of the horse. 



Family 44— TAPIEID/E. (2 Genera ? 6 Species.) 



General Distribution. 



Neotiiopic\i, 

 bub-reoions. 



N KARCTIC 

 SUB-UEGIONS. 



PALyEARCTIC 

 SUD-UEGIONS. 



Ethiopian 

 Sub-regions. 



Oriental 

 Sub- REGIONS. 



Australian 



Sub-regions. 



— 2.3 - 



4 — 



Tlie Tapirs form a small group of animals whose discontinuous 

 distribution plainly indicates their approaching extinction. For 

 a long time only two species were known, the black American, 

 and the white-banded Malay tapir, the former confined to the 

 equatorial forests of South America, the latter to the Malay 

 peninsula, Sumatra, and Borneo (PLate VIII. vol. i. p. 337). 

 Lately however another, or perhaps two distinct species (or ac- 

 cording to Dr. J. E. Gray, four I) have been discovered in the 

 Andes of New Granada and Ecuador, at an elevation of from 

 8,000 to 12,000 feet ; while one or perha^^s two more, forming 

 the allied genus Elasmognathns, have been found to inhabit 

 Central America from Panama to Guatemala. 



Extinct Tapirs. — True tapirs inhabited Western Europe, from 

 the latest Pliocene back to the earliest Miocene times ; while 

 they only occur in either North or South America in the Post- 

 pliocene deposits and caves. The singular distribution of the 

 living species is thus explained, since we see that they are 

 an Old World group which only entered the American continent 

 at a comparatively recent epoch. An ancestral form of this 

 group — Lopliiudon — is found in Miocene and Eocene deposits of 



