334 M. Roulin on Domestic Animals. 



pace. At the end of a certain time, the legs of these horses 

 commonly iengorgent. Then, if they are of a fine form, they 

 are left in the hatos as stallions. There results from this a race 

 in which the amble is the natural pace in the adults. These 

 horses are named aguilillas. 



Dogs, as ig well known, were the auxiliaries of the Spaniards 

 in their military expeditions in the New World, and that from 

 the commencement. Columbus was the first who employed 

 them. At his first battle with the Indians, his band, as we 

 learn from his own memoirs, consisted of two hundred infantry, 

 twenty horsemen, and twenty bloodhounds. Dogs were after- 

 wards employed in the conquest of various parts of the Conti- 

 nent, especially in Mexico and New Grenada, and in all places 

 where the resistance of the Indians was prolonged. Their race 

 has been preserved, without apparent alteration, on the platform 

 of Santa Fe, where they are employed for hunting deer. In 

 this they display an extreme degree of ardour, and employ the 

 same mode of attack which formerly rendered them so formi- 

 dable to the natives. It consists in seizing the animal by the 

 belly, and overturning it by a sudden effort, taking advantage 

 of the moment when its body rests only upon the fore legs. 

 The weight of the animal thus thrown over is often six times 

 that of the dog. 



Without having received any education, the dog of pure 

 breed brings to this kind of chase certain dispositions, of which 

 hunting dogs of a superior kind that are brought from Europe 

 are destitute. For example, it never attacks a deer from be- 

 fore while running ; and even when the latter, not perceiving 

 it, comes directly upon it, it steps aside and assails the deer on 

 the flank. Another dog does not use these precautions, and is 

 often killed on the spot, the vertebras of its neck being dislocated 

 by the violence of the shock. 



Among the poor inhabitants of the banks of the Magdalena, 

 the dog has become deteriorated, partly by mixture, and partly 

 by the want of sufficient food. In this mongrel race, a new 

 instinct seems to have become hereditary. It has been for a 

 long time almost exclusively employed in hunting the white- 

 lipped pccari. The address of the dog consists in restraining 

 its ardour, and in attaching itself to no animal in particular, 



