274 WILD BEASTS. 



LlB - IY - because they breake foorth and assaile men in treason. 

 They are spotted as the Historiographers describe them. 

 I have heard some report that these tygres were very 

 fierce against the Indians, yet would they not adventure at 

 all vppon the Spaniards, or very little ; and that they would 

 choose an Indian in the iniddest of many Spaniardes, and 

 carry him away. 



The beares, which in Cusco they call Otoroncos, 1 be of the 

 same kinde that ours are, and keepe in the ground. There 

 are few swarmes of bees, for that their honniecombes are 

 found in trees, or vnder the ground, and not in hives as in 

 Castillo. The honny combes which I have scene in the 

 Province of Charcas, which they call Lechiguanas, are of a 

 grey colour, having little iuyce, and are more like vnto 

 sweete strawe, than to hony combs. They say the bees are 

 litle, like vnto flies ; and that they swarme vnder the earth. 

 The hony is sharp and black, yet in some places there is 

 better, and the combes better fashioned, as in the province 

 of Tucuman in Chille, and in Carthagena. I have not seene 

 nor heard speake of wild boares ; but of foxes and other 

 wild beasts that eate their cattell and fowle, there are more 

 than their shepheards would willingly have. Besides these 

 beasts that are furious and hurtfull, there are others that 

 are profitable, and have not beene transported by the 

 Spaniardes, as stagges and diere, whereof there is great 

 aboundance in all the forrests. But the greatest parte is a 

 kinde of diere without homes; at the least, I have never 

 seene nor heard speake of other, and all are without homes 

 like vnto corcos? It seemes not hard to beleeve, but is 

 almost certaine, that all these beasts for their lightnesse, 

 and being naturally wilde, have passed from one world to 



1 rtiinnicn is the Quichua for a jaguar. A bear is Ueumari. See 

 G. dc la Ve&amp;lt;ja, ii, pp. 385, 386; where lie refers to the mistake of Acosta 

 in applying the word Otoroncox (a corruption of Uturuncu} to the bear, 

 instead of to the jaguar. 2 A small deer. 



