

CAMELID& 33 



when one Indian had killed a sheep his neighbours came and took 

 what they wanted, and then another Indian killed a sheep in his 

 turn." 



The disagreeable habit here noticed of spitting in the face of 

 persons whose presence is obnoxious is common to all the group, as 

 may be daily witnessed in specimens in confinement in the 

 menageries^of Europe. One of the principal labours to which the 

 Llamas were subjected at the time of the Spanish conquest was 

 that of bringing down ore from the mines in. the mountains. 

 Gregory de Bolivar estimated that in his day as many as three 

 hundred thousand were employed in the transport of the produce 

 of the mines of Potosi alone ; but since the introduction of horses, 

 mules, and donkeys the importance of the Llama as a beast of 

 burden has greatly diminished. 



The Alpaca, though believed by many naturalists to be a variety 

 of the Vicugna, is more probably, like the Llama, derived from the 

 Guanaco, having the naked callosities on the hind limbs, and the 

 relatively large skull of the latter. It is usually found in a 

 domesticated or semi-domesticated state, being kept in large flocks 

 which graze on the level heights of the Andes of southern Peru 

 and northern Bolivia at an elevation of from 14,000 to 16,000 feet 

 above the sea-level, throughout the year. It is smaller than the 

 Llama, and, unlike that animal, is not used as a beast of burden, 

 but is valued only for its wool, of which the Indian blankets and 

 ponchas are made. Its colour is usually dark brown or black. 



Mention has already been made of the occurrence of fossil 

 Llamas in America, but some diversity of view obtains as to the 

 generic position of some of these forms, owing to variations in their 

 dental formula. Remains apparently referable to the existing 

 species occur in the cavern-deposits of Brazil. In the Pleistocene 

 of Mexico we meet with A. (Palauchenia) magna, which attained 

 the size of a Camel, and had always two, and occasionally three, 

 lower premolars ; while in one South American Pleistocene species, 

 which has been generically separated as Hemiauchenia, there were 

 invariably three premolars in each jaw. In A. (Holomeniscus) 

 hesterna, from the Pleistocene of North America, which was equal 

 in size to A. magiut, the premolars were reduced to one in each 

 jaw ; and the same condition obtains in A. (Eschatius) vitakeriana, 

 where, however, the upper one is of simpler structure. 



Extinct Cameloids. Until within the last few years the existence 

 of two genera having so very much in common as the Camels and 

 the Llamas, and yet so completely isolated geographically, had not 

 received any satisfactory explanation ; for the old idea that they in 

 some way " represented " each other in the two hemispheres of the 

 world was a mere fancy without philosophical basis. The dis- 

 coveries made mostly within the past twenty years of a vast and 



