TAPIRUS MALAYANUS. 
To these extracts from the accounts of Major Farquhar and of Sir T. S. Raffles, 
which comprise all the information that has hitherto been communicated from 
Sumatra relating to the Malayan Tapir, I have oidy to add an account of the discovery 
of tills interesting animal. 
The first intelligence of its existence in Sumatra was given to the Government 
of Fort Marlborough at Bencoolen, in the year 1772, by Mr. Whalfeldt, who was 
employed in making a survey of the coast. In the month of April of that 
year, it is noticed in the records, that Mr, W. laid before the Government his 
observations on the places southward of Cawoor, where he met with the Tapir 
at the mouth of one of the rivers. He considered it to be the Hippopotamus, and 
described it by that name ; but the drawing which accompanied the report, identifies 
his animal with the Tapir. This mistake in the name may readily be explained, 
when it is recollected that in the Tenth Edition of the Sy sterna Naturae of Linnams, 
the Tapir is placed as a species of Hippopotamus, while in the Twelfth Edition no 
mention is made of that animal. 
The learned Author of the History of Sumatra, William Marsden, Esq. was at 
this time Secretary to the Government at Bencoolen ; and the Public owes to his 
zeal in collecting every valuable information relating to that Island, the first notice 
of the existence of this animal, which is by the Malays in many places denomi- 
nated Kuda-ayer, literally Hippo-potarnus. After the first discovery in 1772, the 
Tapir was not observed for a considerable period. From the same Catalogue of 
Sir T. S. Raffles, which has furnished the preceding description, it appears that 
in the year 1805, a living specimen was sent to Sir George Leith, when Lieutenant- 
Governor of Penang. It was afterwards observed by Major Farquhar in the vicinity 
of Malacca. A drawing and description of it were communicated by him to the 
Asiatic Society in 1816, and a living subject was afterwards sent to the Managerie 
at Barrackpore from Bencoolen. At this place a drawing was made by Mr. Diard 
in the year 1818, winch, accompanied by an extract from the description of Major 
Farquhar, was communicated to his friends in Paris, where, in March, 1819, 
M. Fred. Cuvier published it in his large Lithographic Work on the Mammalia of 
the Menagerie in Paris. 
In the month of September, 1820, the first specimen of the Malayan Tapir 
was received in England from Sir Thomas Stamford Raffles, with the general Zoolo- 
gical Collection of Mammalia and Birds, the descriptive catalogue of which being 
contained in the Thirteenth Volume of the Transactions of the Linnean Society, has 
been already referred to. This specimen of the Tapir was accompanied by a 
