The tapir is naturally all the world over a very shy, retiring animal, but it is capable of being tamed when taken young, and of showing great attachment.
"The skeleton of the rhinoceros viewed generally has a resemblance to that of the little hyrax, the tapir, and the horse. The skull is very much elevated at the base, being somewhat of a pyramidal form, and the nasal bones curve upwards and downwards, and are of such a size and thickness, in order to support one or more immense horns, that they are quite unparalleled for their development in any other existing quadruped. The nasal bones, together with the premaxillary and maxillary bones, form the general contour for the external apertures of the nostrils. This is peculiar, and found in no other animal with the exception of the tapir."—Prof. W. Boyd Dawkins and Mr. Oakley.
The external appearance of this animal is familiar to most—a large ungainly creature, with a long head, a massive horn on its nose, sometimes two horns; a round unwieldly body covered with an immensely thick hide arranged in heavy folds; short tail and short legs, with three toes covered with broad nails or hoofs.
The stomach is simple; the intestines about eight times the length of the body, and the cæcum is large and sacculated. The horn is a mere agglutinated mass of hair or fibre superimposed on the skin, and has no bony core. The females have two inguinal mammæ.
The dentition is peculiar; "the grinders are implanted by distinct roots, and in the upper jaw their crowns are traversed by two deep folds of enamel which constitute open valleys. In the lower jaw they are composed of two crescent-shaped lobes, also open. The covering of cement is thin, and never fills up the valleys, as in the case of the more complex dental system in the horse. The normal number of grinders is seven in each jaw, while the incisors, as we have already remarked, vary not only in form but also are sometimes absent, and canines are not developed in any of the living or fossil members of the family."—Boyd Dawkins and Oakley.
The Rhinocerotidæ are divided into two groups—the Asiatic and the African; and the former consist of two genera—RHINOCEROS and CERATORHINUS, the former with one and the latter with two horns.
It is a moot point whether the rhinoceros is or is not the unicorn of Scripture, though it is by no means clear that the animal in question was a one-horned creature, but according to some might have been the great wild ox or urus of Macedonia. An Indian single-horned rhinoceros was sent from India to the king of Portugal in 1513, and from it various most distorted pictures were disseminated throughout Europe. It was represented as covered with a wondrous suit of armour beautifully decorated, and with a second horn on its shoulders!
The first one brought alive to England was in 1685. Parsons describes and figures one brought to Europe in 1739, and another in 1741 ('Philosophical Transactions,' xlii.).
The Asiatic rhinoceroses differ from the African in having the skin divided into shields by well-marked folds, long upper cutting teeth, the African having none, and by the produced conical nasal bones of the skull instead of broad and rounded ones. There are one or two other minor yet well-marked differences which we need not mention here.