Democratic Sentinel, Volume 16, Number 42, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 4 November 1892 — A Difficult Animal to Shoot. [ARTICLE]

A Difficult Animal to Shoot.

In the wilder parts of South America, you can bag a deer or wild liog almost any day, if you set wisely about it;, but mouths may pass without even the sight of a tapir, though you may. be in their haunts continually, You see plenty of unmistakable three-toed tracks, aud now and again you may hear tapirs moving in the forest—not leaping through openings between the vines and branches as a deer does, nor pushing the brush aside like a jaguar, but crushing their way by sheer strength, with a great crackling of twigs. It is almost useless to follow tracks or sounds; clumsy as the animals appear, they can race through the underbrush faster than a dog can follow; and they are so keen of sight and scent, and so prone to concealment, that even the most experienced hunter rarely catches sight of out in the daytime, unless by accident. The best plan is to lie in wait for them, as the lithe and crafty jaguai docs, by their drinking and wallowing, places, and this must be done at eight. I may as well add here that tapirs are common all over tropical South and Central America, except the thickly settled regions and the Pacific coast. Naturalists distinguish several species, differing mainly in the size and the structure of the bones; but they are much alike. All go singly, or in bands generally of two or three, and feed on fruits and leaves, —[St. Nicholas.