WHOLE VOL. THE WEST INDIES VAZQUEZ DE ESPINOSA 331 



Chapter XIV 



Of the Diversity of Birds and Animals To Be Found in These 

 Provinces and Regions of the CoHmas. 



987. They have very large royal eagles, falcons, sparrowhawks, 

 primas (female falcons), kestrels, gerfalcons, large owls, barn owls, 

 red owls, large bats bigger than pigeons, condors, and carrion buz- 

 zards ; these two species of birds clean things up and prevent bad 

 smells and tainted air, for they eat up whatever animals and small 

 creatures die, so that they never get to decaying and causing bad 

 odors. There are many other birds of prey, impossible to enumerate. 



988. There are many sorts of waterfowl : Geese and many kinds 

 of ducks, widgeons, pelicans (whose pouch will hold an arroba of 

 water), cranes, flamingos, widgeons, mergansers, gulls, bitterns, white 

 and gray egrets with fine plumes, and many other birds which live on 

 the lakes and rivers and feed on the fish they catch. 



989. In the woods and forests among the trees live wild turkeys, 

 turkeys, pheasants, guinea hens, chachalaca grouse, pigeons, turtle- 

 doves of many sorts, large, medium, and tiny as sparrows, partridges, 

 quail, moor cocks, and many other kinds of wild and of domesticated 

 barnyard fowl. 



990. They have wild animals : Tigers, black bears like those in 

 Spain, small lions which will run away from a dog barking, tapirs, 

 gray-haired pigs with their navels on the backbones ; other little ones 

 mottled almost like wild boars ; black wildcats, great pilferers ; when 

 they make a catch, they run off to the woods on their hind legs, 

 carrying their prey tight in their forelegs ; ant bears, who stick out 

 their long slender tongue alongside the entrance to the anthill, and 

 when it is covered, they draw it in with their catch, and so live on 

 the ants; slender ( ? agalgados) water tigers with fore and hind feet 

 webbed like a duck's, and they generally live in the water. There 

 is a kind of foxes, great chicken thieves ; they carry their young 

 stowed away in a pouch with which Nature provides them. 



991. They have deer Hke ours, and there are great numbers of them 

 everywhere in the Indies. There are others small and red, like goats, 

 which grow fine bezoar stones. The armadillo is good eating ; it 

 lives in holes in the ground. Guadatinajas are a sort of hare. Sloths 

 are the size of a small dog, and very ugly ; they take a long time 

 to raise their foot and make a step forward, making a great enter- 

 prise out of it ; they will use up a whole day in covering the distance 

 of a stone's throw ; they usually move only at night. The usmaca 

 is like a cat ; after bearing its young it- keeps them hanging tight 

 to its teats until they are grown enough to shift for themselves. 



