CHAPTER XXI. 
THE DYING HUANACO. 
Lest any one should misread the title to this chapter, 
T hasten to say that the huanaco, or guanaco as itis 
often spelt, is not a perishing species ; nor, as things 
are, is it likely to perish soon, despite the fact that 
civilized men, Britons especially, are now enthusi- 
astically engaged in the extermination of all the 
nobler mammalians :—a very glorious crusade, the 
triumphant conclusion df which will doubtless be 
witnessed by the succeeding generation, more 
favoured in this respect than ours. The huanaco, 
happily for it, exists in a barren, desolate region, 
in its greatest part waterless and uninhabitable to 
human beings; and the chapter-heading refers to a 
singular instinct of the dying animals, in very many 
cases allowed, by the exceptional conditions in which 
they are placed, to die naturally. 
And first, a few words about its place in nature 
and general habits. The huanaco is a small camel 
—small, that is, compared with its existing relation 
—without a hump, and, unlike the camel of the 
Old World, non-specialized; doubtless it 1s a very 
ancient animal on the earth, and for all we know to 
the contrary, may have existed contemporaneously 
with some of the earliest known representatives of the 
