Los Angeles herald., 1910-05-01
MAY /, 1910.
VACA DEL MONTE
BY DEWEY AusTIN CoBB

L
little about the "anta." the "gram-
4 bestia," and evaca del monte"
that someone inadvertently disclosed
the fact that this imposing array of
names were all applied to the animal
which my school geography called just
plain 'tapir."
He is an odd beast and deserves all
the names he has won. If you have
only seen the chunky little fellow Of
that name in the parks and ZOO you
would be as surprised as I was, to see
a mud-colored baby elephant minus
the 1.-TWO tails" and big ears, with three
toes on his hind feet and four on the
front ones, seven feet long and three
and a half high and weighing about 400
pounds. His nose Is sort of rudimen-
tary trunk flexible as a snake, and he
can extend 1t nearly six inches, pick
up peanut and put 1t in his mouth.
The tapir is the largest animal in
digenous to South America, and shares
with the white-lipped peccary the dis
tinction OF being the only representa-
tive of the pachyderm family in the
new world. The tapir is a very timid
and perfectly hermless animal, yet
there is no creature on the western
continent capable of soaring man in
to such hopeless idiocy. How? He
sleeps day times under some bush just
big enough to hide him; and though
you waken him when you are a quarter
of mile away. profanely crashing
your way through the brush, he will
lie and watch you until you are about
to step on him; then with woof-woofl
and a shrill whistle, away he goes,
never following the neat little paths
which he keeps trimmed out to his
watering place, but plunging through
the jungle, knocking over trees as big
as your wrist. While you are picking
up your hat and gun and hunting in
the leaves for your spectacles, which
hear him half mile away and still In
full career, and let us hope, happy.
People who ought to know about 1t
say that a tapir which is captured
when mature cannot be tanned, but
baby tapir is the "cutest little cuss"
you ever saw. He is spotted with white
like fawn and as clumsy as real
baby. Next to his mother, he loves
human guardian. If his mother is
killed or caught he will not go away,
but hover about, whimpering until he
is tended to-" Give him a peanut or
a lump of sugar and you are thereafter
his trusted guardian. He will hunt
your pocket with his funny little trunk
and pull out everything it contains
and drop them If he cannot eat them.
He hates tobacco and If he finds an
old pipe or piece of Jolly Tar" plug
he will look at you so reproachfully
that you are ashamed of yourself for
using it. You cannot get 1t away from
him unless you climb tree, and then
he will watch you so reproachfully
and make such plaintive baby noises
that you return and apologize.
A woman is the only creature that
can win him away from you, and she
becomes his slave. He must stick his
little probosci into everything he can
reach. He lifts off kettle covers and
burns his nose finding out what is in
them; then runs whining to her to
have it comforted. He trips her when
while she Is picking up the wreckage
and scolding him. But don't you try
to punish that little creature, or the
harmony of the family will be dis
turbed. They say these pets get cross
as thew grow older But who does not?