CHAPTER XXI. 



THE DYING HUANACO. 



LEST any one should misread the title to this chapter, 

 I hasten to say that the huanaco, or guanaco as it is 

 often spelt, is not a perishing species ; nor, as things 

 are, is it likely to perish soon, despite the fact that 

 civilized men, Britons especially, are now enthusi- 

 astically engaged in the extermination of all the 

 nobler mammalians : a very glorious crusade, the 

 triumphant conclusion of which will doubtless be 

 witnessed by the succeeding generation, more 

 favoured in this respect than ours. The huanaco, 

 happily for it, exists in a barren, desolate region, 

 in its greatest part waterless and uninhabitable to 

 human beings ; and the chapter-heading refers to a 

 singular instinct of the dying animals, in very many 

 cases allowed, by the exceptional conditions in which 

 they are placed, -to die naturally. 



And first, a few words about its place in nature 

 and general habits. The huanaco is a small camel 

 small, that is, compared with its existing relation 

 without a hump, and, unlike the camel of the 

 Old World, non-specialized; doubtless it is a very 

 ancient animal on the earth, and for all we know to 

 the contrary, may have existed contemporaneously 

 with some of the earliest known representatives of the 



