Some Early Accounts of the Malay Tapir. 
By W. GEoRGE MAXWELL. — 
In Groeneveldt’s translation” of the Ying-yai Shéng-lan, an 
account of Sumatra written by a Chinese traveller in A. D. 
1416, there i is the following quaint statement :— 
“In the mountains of this country a supernatural animal 
“is found, called The Divine Stag. It looks like a large pig, 
“and is about three feet high; the forepart of the body is black, 
‘the hind part white, and the hair is sleek, short, and very 
“fine. The mouth is like that of a pig, but not flat in front; 
“the hoofs have three grooves, and it only eats plants, not 
other animals.”’ 
The tapir (tapirus malayanus) is of course the animal here 
described, and the account, for all its quaintness, is excellent. 
The question is why should the tapir be called “ The Divine 
Stag.” Groeneveldt in a foot note gives the two Chinese 
ideographs, which he has translated by these words. 
The ideographs are mi (pronounced sn in the Mandarin 
dialect) which means spirit or soul, and if (pronounced lok) 
which means a deer or stag; and © divine stag”’ is thus the 
straightforward translation of the two words. 
The obvious difficulty however is that the tapir most 
certainly is not called “the divine stag”’ by the inhabitants 
either of Sumatra or of any other country in which it is found. 
There is nothing divine or stag-like in its appearance, nor is 
there, so far as 1 am aware, any folk-lore or folk story that 
could be distorted, by the natural mistake of a traveller or by 
any stretch of imagination on his part, into such an expression 
s the divine stag.” 
* Notes on the Malay Archipelago and Malacea. W. P. Groen- 
veldt (Verhandelingen van het Genootschap van Kunsten on Weteus- 
chappen. Volume XXXIX. Batavia 1879.) Miscellaneous Papers 
relating to Indo-China, Second Series Vol. I. p. 199. 
Jour. Straits Branch R. A. Soc., No. 52, 1908: 
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