ECONOMICS OF THE LAMA 



and not merely, as Buffon said, the power of spitting. 

 Spitting, it may be observed, is the merest euphemism 

 for what the lama really does do. It ejects the whole 

 contents of its stomach upon the offending one. It 

 will also bite and kick, and can do both effectively. 

 When inclined to be " nasty " it lays back its ears in 

 an equine manner. In spite of this obvious ill-temper, 

 the Chilian naturalist Gay (no relation to the poet and 

 fabulist, though some of his statements would seem to be 

 efforts of the imagination) described the lama in good 

 Castilian as " suave, familiar, timido y muy curioso." 

 This is inadequate. We require more evidence than 

 disposition and outward appearance for the assertion 

 that a lama is a camel. It is a member of the family 

 Camelidse or group Tylopoda by virtue of the facts 

 that (i) the limbs are not and have not the least trace 

 of the fourth and fifth toes of which rudiments exist 

 in other Artiodactyles ; (2) the less complicated nature 

 of the stomach ; (3) the presence of incisor teeth in the 

 upper jaw which occupy the place of the callous pad 

 of the ruminants against which the lower incisors bite. 

 There are of course other anatomical facts which 

 separate this group from the remaining Artiodactyles, 

 but the three mentioned will suffice for us. The lama, 

 like the camel, has been, and is, used as a beast of 

 burden. Strings of lamas carried down gold from 

 the mines of Potosi in Peru at the order of the Incas 

 of Peru. The Spaniards when they discovered and 

 conqured Peru thought of introducing the lama into 

 Spain and made efforts in that direction. But appar- 

 ently the lama will not thrive away from its native 

 mountains. They also provide cloth and mutton and 

 even bezoar stones. 



Bezoar stones are concretions found in the stomach, 

 and are thus very analogous to the ambergris of the 

 sperm whale, which is also a biliary concretion. The 



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