482 bulletin: museum of comparative ZOOLOGV- 



Charactcrs. — X small, light-limbed dog, of rather slender propor- 

 tions, narrow delicate head, fine muzzle, erect ears, well-developed 

 tail, which may have been close-haired. Colors black, black and 

 white, or perhaps brownish or yellowish. 



Distribution. — This was perhaps the dog of fox-like appearance 

 noticed by many of the early explorers, yet it is difficult to indicate 

 the limits of its former distribution. On the Atlantic seaboard, among 

 the considerable quantity of skeletal remains exjimined, I have seen 

 nothing that could be referred to such a dog; yet Brereton, who 

 reached the Elizabeth Islands and coast of southern New England 

 with Gosnold in 1002, mentions "Dogs like Foxes, blacke and sharpe 

 nosed" among the "Commodities" seen there. In the famous 

 village site near Madisonville, southwestern Ohio, its bones occur 

 and there are in the Peabody Museum similar bones from the south- 

 west and Yucatan, believed ec^ually to be pre-Columbian. Among 

 the dog-skulls found with Peruvian burials the same type occurs, as 

 well as skulls intermediate between this and other dogs, and so proba- 

 bly representing mongrel individuals. Probably then this type of 

 dog was spread over at least the central and southwestern part of 

 North America and parts of northwestern South i\.merica. 



Nomenclatuir. — This is assumed to be the Techichi of the earl\' 

 Spanish accounts of JVIexican dogs, though there is little doubt that 

 two different animals as well as more than one breed of dog were con- 

 fused under this title by the early writers and systematists. It is of 

 some importance, therefore, to examine their accounts carefully since 

 the case is somewhat complex and involves the identity of the AIco 

 of early writers. Both Gmelin and Kerr based their names on the 

 account of Recchi and Lynceus (1651, p. 46G), who in turn refer to 

 Hernandez's brief account (which they print), in the Historiae ani- 

 malium et mineralium Novae Hispaniae, page 7. Hernandez who died 

 in 1578, had visited Mexico, and in his enumeration of its animals 

 includes three sorts of native dogs. The first of these is unquestion- 

 ably the Mexican Hairless Dog, and as'he himself states, was the only 

 one he saw personally ("caeteros vero neque conspexeram, neque 

 adhuc eo[z. c. ad Europam] delatos puto"). 



His account of the two other dogs is important and reads: — 

 " Secundus Melitensibus canibus similis est, candido, nigro, ac fuluo 

 colore varius, sed giberosus, gratusque iucunda quadam deformitate, 

 ac capite velut ab humeris edito, quem Michuacanensein abora vnde 

 est oriundus vocare solent. Tertius vero nuncupatus Techichi, 

 Catulis similis est nostratibus, Indis edulis, tristi aspectu, ac caetera 



