THE AMERICAN TAPIR. 
195 
merits of our countrymen to be passed over without 
observation. 
" The knowledge of this animal in France," says 
M. Desmarest in his Mammalogie, carefully shielding 
himself under an equivocal form of expression, " is due 
to M. Diard." But M. Lesson goes farther, and echo- 
ing as usual the dicta of his predecessor with a slight 
addition of his own, speaks of the Indian Tapir as a 
species " discovered by M. Diard." Again, in the 
Dictionnaire des Sciences Naturelles, M. Desmarest, 
forgetful of his former caution, heightens the farce still 
more by asserting that its " discovery in the forests 
of Sumatra and the Peninsula of Malacca is due to 
MM. Duvaucel and Diard." In none of these works 
is the least indication given that the animal in question 
had previously been even seen by an Englishman ; much 
less is the fact suffered to transpire that long before 
M. Diard had "discovered" it, not in the forests of 
Sumatra or the Malayan Peninsula, but in the Mena- 
gerie of the Governor-General of British India at 
Barrackpore, a full description, together wi|;h a figure 
of the animal and of its skull, had been laid before the 
Asiatic Society by Major Farquhar for publication in 
their Researches. This latter circumstance, it is true, 
was not mentioned by M. Frederic Cuvier when he 
figured the Tapir of Malacca in his splendid work from 
a drawing made by M. Diard in the Barrackpore Me- 
nagerie, or by that gentleman himself in the published 
part of his accompanying letter; but there seems to 
have been no intention on their parts wilfully to mis- 
lead their readers. That M. Diard at least could not 
have been actuated by any such desire is fully proved 
by several passages in the note appended by him to 
Major Farquhar's original description, in which he 
speaks of the gallant officer as " the excellent naturalist 
o 2 
