THE HOOFED MAMMALS. 



139 



Fig. 76, GUANACO (Lama guanacus). 



gonia and Tierra del Fuego ; although it has now been, exterminated from 

 most parts of the pampas. In size it may be compared to a red-deer ; 

 and its fur is of beautiful, light fawn-brown colour. The llama and alpaca 

 are domesticated varieties of the guanaco, kept by the inhabitants of the 

 Peruvian highlands; the former 

 and larger of the two being 

 employed as a beast of burden, 

 while the latter is bred for the 

 sake of its valuable wool. All 

 these animals have a peculiar 

 cry, with some resemblance to 

 the neigh of a horse ; and in 

 the domesticated state they are 

 disagreeable associates, on ac- 

 count of their unpleasant habit 

 of spitting, apparently as a 

 means of defence. Extinct 

 members of the family are 

 common in the Tertiary rocks 

 of North America, while fossil 

 camels occur in Northern India ; 

 and it is by these lost types 

 that we are enabled to account for the present anomalous geographical dis- 

 tribution of the group, which is evidently of northern origin. 



Among the smallest of all Ungulates are the graceful little Oriental 

 animals commonly known as chevrotains, or mouse-deer, which in coloration, 

 form, and habits, more nearly resemble the Rodent agutis 

 than ordinary Hoofed Mammals. Together with a nearly- The Chevrotains. 

 allied African genus, these animals constitute a third section Family 

 of the selenodont Artiodactyles, known as the Tragulina. Tragulidce. 

 From the camel tribe they differ in the total absence of 

 incisor teeth in the upper jaw, and also by the circumstance that in the lower 

 jaw the canines are approximated to the incisors, which they resemble in 

 form, as well as in the structure of the feet. From the true Ruminants they 

 may be distinguished by the stomach having only three in place of four dis- 

 tinct compartments, as well as by the fibula, or outer and smaller bone of the 

 lower half of the hind-leg, being complete and quite distinct from the larger 

 bone, or tibia. Another point of distinction is to be found in the form of the 

 so-called odontoid process projecting from the lower part of the front surface 

 of the second vertebra of the neck, which in the present group is conical, 

 whereas it is spout-like in the true Ruminants. A resemblance to the latter 

 group, and at the same time a distinction from the camel tribe, is to be found 

 in that the two bones of the ankle-joint, respectively known as the cuboid 

 and the navicular, are welded together to form a single bone. As in the true 

 Ruminants, the toes are enclosed in solid hoofs ; four complete toes being 

 developed in each foot. 



- The smallest representatives of the family are the true or Oriental 

 chevrotains (Tragulus), of which there are four or five species, ranging from 

 India and Ceylon through the Malayan countries, as far east as the island of 

 Palawan in the Philippine group. They have a total, of 34 teeth, arid aro 

 mostly uniform in coloration. The somewhat larger West African chevro- 

 tain (JJorcatherium) differs by the shorter and stouter feet, and the separation 



