3SO INTRODUCTION OF THE HORSE. 



through the densest bushes, until, torn cruelly by the thorns and 

 brambles, he is constrained to let his would-be victim escape. 



The Tapir Pinchaca appears to be confined to the region of the 

 Cordilleran table-lands. The name "Pinchaca," bestowed on the 

 species by M. Roulin, is that of a fabulous animal mentioned in the 

 traditions of New Grenada. It is distinguished from the former 

 species by the absence of those lateral folds on the snout and occipital 

 ridge to be remarked in the American Tapir, by its long thick hair 

 which, however, does not form a mane on the neck and by a white 

 mark at the extremity of the lower jaw. 



The Peccaries are the wild boars of Tropical America. They are 

 smaller than those of the Old World ; have fewer teeth, and their 

 tail is rudimentary. They live in numerous herds, and not only 

 defend themselves energetically against aggressors, but when the 

 latter have grown fatigued, assume the offensive, and pursue them 

 with incredible fury. Hunting them, therefore, is for man, no less 

 than for the jaguar, a dangerous adventure. When one of them has 

 been seized by the latter, or slain by the former, the herd combine in 

 pursuit of the murderer, and if he does not succeed in escaping them 

 by a rapid retreat, or by opposing some insurmountable obstacle to 

 their headlong career, he is infallibly torn to pieces. 



The genus Horse, or, to adopt the new nomenclature, the family 

 of Equidce, are altogether wanting in the American Fauna ; that is, 

 in the native indigenous Fauna of the New World. Previous to the 

 era of Spanish Conquest, America did not possess a single species 

 analagous to the horse, the onagra, the hemionus, the zebra, or the 

 quagga ; and the reader of the animated pages of Prescott or Arthur 

 Helps will remember with what terror the Peruvians as well as the 

 Mexicans regarded the mounted cavaliers of Pizarro and Cortez. The 

 horse, however, when introduced by Europeans, multiplied rapidly in 

 the Savannahs, where he soon became wild, and breeding with the 

 ass, produced the mule, which, in the Spanish-American States, as in 

 the mother-country, is now the most useful auxiliary of man. The 

 European ox is likewise acclimatized over the entire extent 6f the 



