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Show 1867.] DR. J. E. GRAY ON THE TAPIRID.E. 877 adult Baird's Tapir from Central America, which had been sent to him by Capt. D o w * ; and more lately Mr. Salvin has obtained for the Museum the skin and the skull of a half-grown specimen of the same animal. Thus we have the skull of this interesting genus in two very distinct states of development. Mr. Sclater has also kindly shown me a photograph of the very young animal, in its spotted and banded state, which is on its way to the Gardens of the Society. These materials have enabled me to study this very interesting animal in considerable detail. To understand its characters more completely I have compared the skull with the series of skulls of Tapirs in the British Museum and in the Museum of the College of Surgeons, and with the figures of the skulls to be found in Cuvier's 'Ossemens Fossiles' and De Blainville's 'Osteographie.' These examinations have enabled me to point out the craniological characters by which the species may be distinguished, and also to record the differences which occur in the skulls of the different kinds as the animal passes from youth to adult age. These researches have induced me to believe that one of the skulls of Tapirs in the British Museum indicates the existence of a South- American species that has not yet been observed in the living state. This is not extraordinary when we recollect that the Tapir of Central America, which belongs to a peculiar group, was not distinguished from the common Tapir until the very peculiar formation of its skull was observed and figured. Fam. TAPIRID^E. Nose produced into a short proboscis. Toes two or three, sub-equal, all reaching the ground, without any prehensile process on the upper edge, nail short; each with a separate hoof. Face not horned. Neck short. Cutting-teeth in each jaw, erect, normal. Tapirina, Gray, List M a m m . B. M . p. 184. Multungula genuina, Giebel, Saugeth. p. 177. Onguligrades, Blainville. There is a peculiarity in the change of the teeth of the Tapirs which I do not find noticed in Owen's ' Odontographia,' or in De Blainville's 'Osteographie,' or in any work that has occurred to me. In most mammalia the second series of the cutting-teeth are developed rather within the base of the milk series; but in the Tapirs they are developed so far within their hinder edge that, when the milk series are about to be shed and the permanent series are just about being developed, there are two distinct series of apertures to be observed in the intermaxillaries and the front edge of the lower jaw. The skulls of the American Tapir and of Baird's Elasmognathus in the British Museum show this peculiarity. The skull of a young American Tapir in the Museum Collection shows the same peculiarity. In this specimen, which has lost all its * See Mr. Sclater's remarks on exhibiting this skull, antea, p. 473. |
