TAPIES. 313 



hide, and he exemplifies it by narrating as a fact that he frequently- 

 fired at a female animal, which was crossing the river with her 

 young one, without apparently in any way injuring or even dis- 

 turbing her, for she continued on her course without taking any 

 notice of the shots, although he saw the impression on her cheek 

 which the ball had made. This was of course in the days of old- 

 fashioned weapons ; but even then it is, as Sir W. Jardine states, 

 a point upon which most people will be sceptical whether the skin 

 of any of these animals would resist a ball directly fired from a 

 properly loaded and efiicient gun. 



Although the colour of an adult tapir of this species is a uniform 

 one, the young animal has its rich brown-black hair beautifully 

 variegated with lightish-fawn coloured spots and stripes. 



The tough skin, by being so impervious to injury, and the great 

 muscular strength possessed by the tapir, which in proportion to its 

 size is said to be as great as that of a rhinoceros, account for some of 

 the peculiar habits of the animal in its wild state. It is described 

 as never frequenting a pathway that may already have been made 

 by other animals or by men, but makes a road for itself by break- 

 ing and pushing with its head, which is carried low, through the 

 obstacles it encounters. It has a most wonderful power of forcing 

 its way through places that appear impenetrable, such as the 

 most densely wooded forests, where the creepers, thorny vines, 

 and the rank vegetation abounding in tropical profusion, form by 

 their perfect network a tangled undergrowth that laces together the 

 trimks of the great trees whose crowned heads intermingle their 

 leaves and branches so as to form a close roof which, being im- 

 pervious to sunhght, keeps a perpetual gloom reigning over the 

 land they cover. In the depths of such a covert the tapir finds a 

 haunt congenial to its taste, and selecting a dry spot for its lair, 

 it proceeds to clear a track to the bank of the nearest pool or 

 river, and thereafter always uses the same road going and 

 returning. It is an amphibious animal, and when it reaches 

 a river plunges in, and diving to the bottom commences feeding 

 on the roots and stems of the water-plants. It can remain 

 underneath for two or three minutes, and then by rising to the 

 surface and elevating the prolonged snout take a breath, and 



