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Inquiries respecting certain Cha/nges observed to Iiave taken 

 place in Domestic Animals, transported from the Old to the 

 New Continent. By M. Roulin, M. D *. 



JjuBiNG a residence of six years in Columbia, I have collected 

 a certain number of observations with respect to some points in 

 natural history, but more particularly with respect to quadru- 

 peds, (mammifera), and birds, which I propose to submit suc- 

 cessively to the judgment of the Academy. 



Of the large quadrupeds which at present occur in that coun- 

 try, the most numerous are those which have been transported 

 from the Old Continent. As they are at the same time the most 

 useful, their existence in these countries has been much attended 

 to in an economical point of view ; but, in a scientific point of 

 view, they seem to have been utterly neglected. Perhaps it is 

 supposed that they have been sufficiently studied in Europe, to 

 render any further attention to them in this respect unneces- 

 sary. 



But the introduction into the New World of animals which 

 have, in some measure, been substituted for the indigenous spe- 

 cies, forms an epoch the history of which certainly deserves to 

 be studied. Has their establishment been accompanied with no 

 remarkable circumstance or phenomenon ? Once naturalized in 

 the country, have they remained what they were in Europe ; 

 and, if they have undergone some durable change, may not this 

 transformation throw some light on that which they formerly 

 experienced, in passing from the wild to the domestic state? 

 These are points which deserve to be cleared up, but which can 

 only be so, in a complete manner, by bringing together observar- 

 tions made in different parts of this vast continent. I now prew 

 sent those which I have myself made in New Grenada, and in a 

 part of Venezuela, from the third to the tenth degree of north 

 latitude, and from the seventieth to the eightieth degree of west 

 longitude. 



Although this space is rather limited, it presents a favourable 

 field for observation, being tra\'ersed, in its whole extent, by the 

 great Cordillera of the Andes, which is, in this part, divided 



" In a former Number of the Journal, we gave a short notice of this me- 

 moir. We now lay before our readers the whole of Roulin's interesting in. 

 quiries. 



