BEGINNINGS OF AMERICAN NATURAL HISTORY 
Allen and Tozzer,' however, interpreted 
as a spotted dog, is depicted in several of 
the Maya codices that have come down 
to us from pre-conquistorial times. 
Interesting in connection with the 
aboriginal spotted dog of Mexico, and 
the perro mudo” of the West Indies 
(first observed by Columbus in Cuba and 
Jamaica) is the race of hunting dog 
which we find depicted in the minor 
arts of pre-Homerie civilization border- 
ing the Aegean, and continuing until 
historic times. One of the earliest natu- 
ralistic paintings of a spotted dog, dating 
from at least the thirteenth century 
B. C., is found in a colored frieze from 
the palace of Tiryns, discovered in 1911. 
The subject is a boar hunt, and the boar 
1 Animal Figures of the Maya Codices. Papers 
of Peabody Museum, Amer. Arch., vol. iv, 1910. 
2A particular description of the native West 
Indian dumb dog is given by Oviedo (1535), who 
is also the earliest to describe in detail the hutia 
(Capromys fourniert Desm.). See W. S. Mac- 
Leay’s ‘‘Notes on Capromys,” in Zool. Journ. 
vol. iv, 1829. 
419 
is shown driven by dogs on to the spears 
of the hunters. In the background is a 
marsh with weeds. The original of this 
painting is preserved in the Museum at 
Athens, and copies exist in the British 
and various American Museums. 
The Letters of Hernando Cortes to the 
Emperor Charles V. are recognized as 
“an historical monument of the greatest 
authenticity and value,” forming, with 
the True Relation of Bernal Diaz, the 
original source of our information regard- 
Egyptian hunting-dog, from an early dynastic 
(5000 ? B. GC.) Stone palette found by Quibell 
at Hierakonpolis 
Brazilian quadrupeds, the jaguar, capybara and tapir, after colored drawings introduced in Blaeus’ 
map of Brazil, 1605 
