The Dying Huanaco. 3 1 5 



camel type, whose remains occur in the lower and 

 upper miocene deposits Poebrotherium, Protolabis, 

 Procamelus, Pliauchenia, and Macrauchenia. It 

 ranges from Tierra del Fuego and the adjacent is- 

 lands, northwards over the whole of Patagonia, and 

 along the Andes into Peru and Bolivia. On the great 

 mountain chain it is both a wild and a domestic 

 animal, since the llama, the beast of burden of the 

 ancient Peruvians, is no doubt only a variety : but 

 as man's slave it has changed so greatly from the 

 original form that some naturalists have regarded 

 the llama as a distinct species, which, like the camel 

 of the East, exists only in a domestic state. It has 

 had time enough to vary, as it is more than probable 

 that the tamed and useful animal was inherited by 

 the children of the sun from races and nations that 

 came before them : and how far back Andean civi- 

 lization extends may be inferred from the belief 

 expressed by the famous American archasologist, 

 Squiers, that the ruined city of Tiahuanaco, in the 

 vicinity of Lake Titicaca, is as old as Thebes and 

 the Pyramids. 



It is, however, with the wild animal, the huanaco, 

 that I am concerned. A full-grown male measures 

 se"ven to eight feet in length, and four feet high 

 to the shoulder; it is well clothed in a coat of 

 thick woolly hair, of a pale reddish colour, longest 

 and palest on the under parts. In appearance it is 

 very unlike the camel, in spite of the long legs and 

 neck ; in its finely-shaped head and long ears, and 

 its proud and graceful carriage, it resembles an 

 antelope rather than its huge and, from an aesthetic 

 point of view, deformed Asiatic relation. In habits 



