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Show 1870.] MR. SCLATER ON TAPIRUS ROULINI. 51 January 27, 1870. Professor Newton, V.P., in the Chair. Mr. Sclater read extracts from several letters addressed to him by Mr. Robert B. White, C.M.Z.S., concerning the Hairy Tapir (Tapirus roulini*), specimens of which Mr. White was endeavouring to procure for the Society's Menagerie. In a letter dated Popayan, 8th June, 1869, Mr. White wrote as follows :- " During the past two months I have been several times on the central Cordillera, to the Volcano of Purace and elsewhere, and have thought that it would be highly interesting to the Society to get specimens of the Tapir which is found there. Boussingault speaks of it, I think; but owing to the stupidity of the natives, the tales told about the animal are so absurd as to throw discredit on its existence. They are very shy, and I have not been able to get near them, but have seen them at a distance of half a mile, with a telescope, bathing themselves in a small lake. I have also seen the footprints, the excrement, and the skins occasionally brought in by the Indians. From this I can say that this Tapir is about the size of the ordinary one, greyish black, with very powerful snout and hoofs. It is never found at a lower elevation than 3500 metres above the sea-level, where the temperature is 6° to 10° Cent., and it exists up to 4200 metres. It would therefore be easy to acclimatize it in England ; for it constantly freezes in the Cordillera at 4000 metres. These animals are rarely killed, because the skin only sells for about 3*.; but last week I bought a Bear's skin from an Indian, who sometimes kills Tapirs." Mr. Sclater remarked that this Tapir was a very rare animal, and that he believed that there was no complete specimen of it in any European collection*]*. It appeared to have been first discovered, about 1828, by Dr. Roulin, during his residence at Bogota*}:, on the Paramos of Quindiu and Suma Paz. A second French naturalist, M . Justin Goudot, who was in New Granada about 1842, had given us some particulars concerning the life and habits of this Tapir in a memoir published in the ** Comptes Rendus' of the Academy of Sciences of Paris (vol. xvi. p. 331, 1843). M. Goudot met with the animal at an elevation of from 1400 metres to 4400 metres (being nearly up to the snow-level) on the Peak of Tolima. The only other original authority that mentioned this animal was * Tbe first Latin specific name applied to this Tapir appears to be roulini of Fischer (Syn. M a m m . Add. p. 406), 1829. Wagler's term villosus (Syst. d. Amph. p. 17) is one year later; and the earlier French writers merely call the animal Tapir pinchaque. f [In reply to inquiries, M . Alphonse Milne-Edwards kindly informs m e that the collection of the Jardin des Plantes includes only two crania of this Tapir-one obtained by M . Roulin in 1828, and the other by M . Goudot in 1843.- P. L. S.] \ See Cuvier's report on M . Roulin's memoir (Ann. Sci. Nat. xvii. p. 107), and M . Roulin's memoir itself (Ann. Sci. Nat. xviii. p. 26). |