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The Journal of Heredity 



of the wild species into solid colors, 

 coarse patterns or irregular spots, ac- 

 companied by partial or complete albin- 

 ism and other abnormal features. Great 

 diversity exists among the domesticated 

 cuys in Peru, an example of which was 

 noted at an isolated Indian house at 

 Machu Picchu in May, 1915. With 

 less than a score of animals there were 

 white, black, brown and gray coats and 

 four shades of red and bufif, including a 

 dark mahogany, a paler red, a bright 

 bufif and a dull bufif, also a pale 

 bufif gray, distinct from a black 

 and white gray. Red eyes were 

 noted with bufif and white coat, a gray 

 and white coat, and a coat that was en- 

 tirely black, except for a wdiite stripe 

 on the face. Some individuals were 

 rough, with the hair turned in all direc- 

 tions, and some had lop-ears. More 

 extended and detailed investigation has 

 been given to the color variations of 

 guinea-pigs than to those of any other 

 animal, and the chief authorities in this 

 field have stated the following general 

 conclusion : 



"It can be stated, therefore, w'ith 

 probable correctness, that the guinea- 

 pig has undergone in domestication 

 more extensive variation in color and 

 coat characters than any other mam- 

 mal, and that this variation has oc- 

 curred almost if not quite exclusively 

 under the tutelage of the natives ot 

 Peru. This conclusion points either to 

 a great antiquity of the guinea-pig as 

 a domesticated animal or to more rapid 

 evolution by unit character variati(^ii 

 than by other natural processes."^ 



In addition to the llama, alpaca and 

 cuy, the ancient inhabitants of the 

 tablelands are known from the evi- 

 dence of remains found in ancient ceme- 

 teries to have had at least two very 

 distinct types of native dogs, one like 

 a shepherd dog, described by Nehring 

 as Caiiis ingac pccuariiis, and another 

 which is compared with a bulldog. 



Canis ingae iiwlossoides. In the 

 warmer valleys, according to von 

 Tschudi, the small hairless house-dog, 

 Ca>iis caraibicus, was the prevailing 

 type. The name perros chinos, applied 

 to the hairless dogs in Peru, instead of 

 indicating a Chinese origin, may corre- 

 spond to such expressions as "house- 

 dogs" or "lap-dogs" in English, china 

 being a word for woman in the Quichua 

 language. 



The fact that the ancient Peruvians 

 and their neighbors had several domes- 

 ticated animals while the Indians of 

 other parts of America had only dogs, 

 has led some writers to consider the 

 Peruvian tablelands, instead of the 

 warmer valleys, as the original seat of 

 development of the ancient Peruvian 

 civilization. It has long been supposed 

 that a pastoral state preceded the de- 

 \'elopment of agriculture in the Old 

 World, an idea borrowed from the tra- 

 ditions of the Jews, Greeks, and other 

 Mediterranean peoples. 



It is possible, however, that the pas- 

 toral nations of antiquity secured their 

 doinesticated animals from their agri- 

 cultural neighbors whose crops also 

 they eventually adopted, just as our 

 western hunting Indians began to keep 

 horses, cattle and sheep many years be- 

 fore they settled down to farming. 

 Dogs might be domesticated by savages, 

 but such animals as sheep, cattle, 

 horses, camels, and llamas, seem much 

 more likely to have been domesticated 

 by settled agricultural peoples, than by 

 nomadic hunting tribes. Hunting tribes 

 were numerous in America, and many 

 had adopted only one or two crops, but 

 there were no strictly pastoral people, 

 none Who relied on domesticated ani- 

 mals instead of on plants. The ancient 

 Peruvians, who went farthest in the 

 domestication of animals, had also the 

 most highly developed agriculture, the 

 most! numerous crops and the most 

 specialized methods of farming. 



1 Castle and Wright, Studies of Inheritance in Guinea-pigs and Rats, Pub. 241, Carnegie 

 Institution, Washington, p. 6. 



