THE LLAMA. 



The Llama is in general a timid and docile animal. If 

 teased or ill treated, however, they become spiteful. Their 

 mode of manifesting their anger is singular : it consists in 

 darting their saliva in considerable quantity upon the person 

 who offends them. They will cover it with a surface of three 

 or four yards in extent. 



The Vicuna, the wool of which is very valuable, is smaller 

 than the Llama ; its limbs are more neatly formed, and it 

 has no protuberance on the breast. It is of a reddish brown 

 on the upper part of the body, and whitish on the lower. 



" The Llamas (says the author of the Menageries) form a 

 secondary group of camels, offering to the eye of the naturalist 

 very small anatomical differences of construction from that 

 of the camel, properly so called. The foot of the Llama is 

 not, like that of the camel, covered with an elastic sole, which 

 joins the two toes. From the absence of this entire sole, the 

 species of South America is enabled to climb the precipices of 

 the Andes, which are its native region, the toes having strong 

 nails, each of which has a thick cushion, or pad, below. The 

 Llama also wants the second canine tooth in the lower jaw ; 

 but this difference is not, by some, considered such as to re- 

 quire a separation of the genus for deer, of various species, 

 have the same deviation from* the general type. Again, the 

 absence of the hump in the Llama species is not an anato- 

 mical difference which constitutes a character ; for, as the 

 skeleton of the Bactrian camel with two humps does not differ 

 from that of the Arabian with one, so does the bones of the 

 arrangement of the Llama agree precisely with the conform- 

 ation of the camel. The zebu is an ox, although he has a 

 hump. The ears of the Llama are longer, and the tail is 

 shorter, than those of the camel. The similarities which 

 determine the genus to which the camels and the Llamas 

 belong, are principally these : 1. Each species has very re- 

 markable peculiarities connected with the economy of their 

 reproduction, in which they differ from all other animals. 2. 

 The camel and the Llama differ also from every other species 

 of the class of ruminating animals, in the want of horns, and 

 in having two large incisive teeth on each side of the upper 



