HISTORY OP THE PERISSODACTYLA 



321 



ceptional way by the enlarged external upper incisor and the 

 lower canine, the upper canine being much reduced and without 

 function. The grinding teeth have very low crowns, pre- 

 molars (except the first) and molars are all alike and of a very 

 simple pattern, which has been independently repeated in 

 several different orders of herbivorous mammals ; in both 

 upper and lower teeth, there are two elevated, straight, trans- 

 verse crests. 



Except for the modification of the skull which is conditioned 

 by the development of the proboscis, the skeleton might be- 

 long to any one of several 

 Eocene or Ohgocene fami- 

 Ues, and it is this general- 

 ized, indifferent character 

 which has led to the dub- 

 bing of many early peris- 

 sodactyls as "tapiroids." 

 The limbs are short and 

 moderately heavy, the 

 bones of the fore-arm and 

 lower leg all separate and 

 the number of toes is four 



in the front foot and three in the hind. The toes end in well- 

 formed separate hoofs, but behind them is a pad, which carries 

 most of the weight. The body is covered with smooth, short 

 hair, which in the American species is of a uniform dark brown, 

 but in the Asiatic species the head, neck and Umbs are black and 

 the body is white. In both, however, the young have longitudi- 

 nal, Ught-coloured stripes and spots on a dark ground (see Fig. 6, 

 p. 47) indicating what the colour-pattern of the ancestral 

 forms must have been. As might be inferred with certainty 

 from the low-crowned teeth, the tapirs are browsing, not graz- 

 ing, animals, feeding upon leaves and shoots and other soft 

 vegetable tissues. They are shy and soUtary in habit and live 

 usually in thick forests and near water, which they frequently 



Fig. 168. — Skull of American Tapir, right side. 



