66 ANIMALS OF THE NEW WORLD. 



animals to our view. We felt an indescribable 

 emotion, when, on passing from one hemisphere to 

 another, we no longer recognised the domestic 

 animals with which we had been familiar from early 

 life; when the camel gave place to the llama, the 

 deer of our forests to the carabou, and the sheep to 

 the vicunna. Nothing, perhaps, awakens in the 

 traveller a livelier remembrance of the immense 

 distance by which he is separated from his country, 

 than such transitions. The sight fills with admira- 

 tion, even those, who, unacquainted with scientific 

 subjects, feel the same emotions of delight in the 

 contemplation of strange animals, as in the view of 

 a beautiful landscape, or a majestic ruin. A tra- 

 veller requires not the aid of botany to recognise 

 the torrid zone, from the mere aspect of its vege- 

 tation ; and without knowing anything of zoology, 

 he feels that he is not in Europe, when he encoun- 

 ters stately herds of prong-horned antelopes, that 

 range the borders of the Missouri; the agouti, that 

 represent in the Antilles, and throughout the warmer 

 portions of America, the hares and rabbits of the 

 old world ; the pumas that start from out the ma- 

 jestic forests which clothe the high calcareous Alps of 

 New Andalusia, or range those coasts, where a bright 

 and clear sky, with a few light clouds at sunset, 

 reposes on the peninsula, destitute of trees, and on 

 the plains of Cumana, while the clouds pour forth 

 their fertile showers among the inland mountains." 

 The Common Fox (Vulpes vulgaris) of the trans- 

 atlantic world is not less conspicuous for cunning 

 and rapacity than his brethren of the ancient con- 

 tinents. Strong, and active, with a head to con- 



