A LAND OF SKELETONS 71 



noteworthy for the absence of a number of Old World 

 and North American forms, this paucity being specially 

 noticeable among the ungulates or hoofed mammals, which 

 are represented solely by the aforesaid guanaco and its 

 allies, by a group of deer differing considerably from all 

 Old World species, although represented in North America, 

 and by several species of tapirs — the latter animals being at 

 the present day known elsewhere only by a solitary kind from 

 the Malay region, although they were formerly abundant 

 over a large portion of the Old World. Consequently, 

 such well-known and important groups of ungulates 

 as oxen, goats, sheep, antelopes, horses, rhinoceroses, 

 hippopotamuses, and elephants are totally unknown in a wild 

 state at the present day in South America, although two 

 of them — viz., horses and elephants — formerly existed there. 

 Equally characteristic are the birds of South America. 

 Although it is only possible here to make allusion to 

 a few among these, I may especially mention the entire 

 group of humming-birds, together with a peculiar family 

 of perching birds commonly known as wood-hewers, and 

 technically as the Dendrocolaptidae, of which the well-known 

 oven-bird (so called on account of its dome-shaped mud 

 nest) is a familiar example. The large gallinaceous birds 

 termed curassows and guans are also very characteristic, 

 while still more distinctive of the country are the tinamus, 

 which, although structurally allied to the ostriches, are so 

 like partridges in form and habits that by English residents 

 in the country they are universally so termed. Another 

 characteristic South American bird commonly misnamed 

 by Europeans is the rhea, this bird, which is almost always 

 designated an ostrich, differing from its African relative 

 by having three toes instead of two. Yet another remark- 

 able avian type is to be found in the large and somewhat 



