INTRODUCTION. 91 



pean, demands at least that we should suspend our 

 opinion until this question be better elucidated. As 

 for those of America, the half reclaimed of the north 

 is presumed to refer to our description of a domesti- 

 cated individual that had been the property of the 

 celebrated Indian chief Tecumseh, one which we 

 regarded as coming nearer to the Coyotl of Mexico 

 than the wolf: neither that specimen nor others of 

 the same stock that came under our observation, 

 were either gaunt or long-legged ; and with regard 

 to the South American partially tamed species, we 

 there referred to the Aguara* dogs of the Caribs, 

 Tapuias, and Arookas, all seemingly allied to the 

 wild dogs of the primseval woods along the Oro- 

 noque. We may therefore conclude, that reasoning 

 upon such a statement, where the word dogs was 

 used, is mistaking the common acceptation of that 

 name for the generical term which naturalists, for 

 the convenience of classification, have adopted and 

 applied in a more extended form. On this subject 

 our language is 'deficient in a sufficiently correct 



* Aguara is one of those indefinite appellations which ex- 

 tend over a vast surface of America. It would seem to be 

 derived from the Mexican wolf or fox, whose cry is said to 

 repeat the sounds Agou-a-a ! but, in other places, it is a fox, 

 a wolf, a feline animal ; we have heard it even bestowed on 

 several species of fishes. This name is given with some syl- 

 lable before or after, or both before and after the word, and 

 appears to be an epithet. In the East Indies the same thing 

 occurs, for there Beriah is a name applied both to the wolf 

 and hyaena. The Dhole appears to be in a similar predica- 

 ment. 



