ABORIGINAL DOGS. 335 



unambitious home of which they dispossessed the 

 simple Indian. " There are no vicissitudes for the 

 eternal beauties of nature," says Madame de Genlis : 

 " while, amid blood-stained revolutions, palaces, mar- 

 ble columns, statues of bronze, and even cities them- 

 selves disappear, the simple flower of the field, 

 regardless of the storm, grows into beauty and mul- 

 tiplies for ever." ' * 



" The wild race of Dogs of the Southern Continent 

 which the Indians have reclaimed, and which, six and 

 eight together in company, hunt agoutis, pacas, and 

 wild gallinacea, with a solitary cry heard in the dense 

 forest, — middling in size, light in colour, and close- 

 haired, is the Aguara dog of Surinam. The species 

 is not numerous. Among the aboriginal natives of 

 the Northern Continent, there occurs a small dog 

 of slender make, with broad pointed ears, covered 

 with long white straight hair, and having the body 

 clouded with blackish grey and brown intermingled 

 spots, and the feet well clothed with fur. It is gentle 

 and confiding in disposition, but mute ; at least in its 

 native land it is never known to bark. These and 

 the lanigerous dog beyond the Rocky Mountains, 

 are the only races of the native breeds of either 

 continent, in which we trace any of the peculiarities 

 assigned to the Alco, in the two races distinguished 

 by that name. 



" Of the three different species of Dog, included 

 by Fernandez in his History of the Animals of New 

 Spain, under the generic name of Alco, Buffbn, 



* My MS. Notes of Travels in Haiti in 1830 and 1831. (R. H.) 



