THE XIBARO. 341 



of Surinam. When I was journeying up to the 

 mountains of Maimon beyond the Yuna river, our 

 path in the pine forests was crossed by a solitary Dog 

 of peculiar make. As it lurched past us, I heard for 

 the first time the Xibaro spoken of. When we 

 came to the spot at which the dog had skulked into 

 sight, we found, a little way oiF our track, a. forest hog, 

 which had been run down, and just slaughtered. 

 The entrails were torn open, and the Xibaro had 

 been gloating on the reeking blood and steaming 

 viscera. My inquiries led to some precise informa- 

 tion about this race of wild dogs. Tradition makes 

 them Indian. They maintain a uniform character in 

 every district in which they are known. They are 

 prick-eared, middle-sized, and light-coloured. A 

 sketch supplied me by a Spanish friend, I find still 

 preserved among my St. Domingo notes, and I close 

 this account of the Alco with a copy of it, as the re- 

 presentation of a remanent aboriginal hunting dog."* 



THE MANATEE. 



June loth. — A Manatee (Manatus Americanus) 

 fortunately fell under my observation at Savanna-le- 

 Mar ; having been just captured by getting itself en- 



* " I met somewhere in my reading a short time ago with the word 

 ' Xibaro,' applied, as a South American term, to the Wild Dog of the 

 Savannas. The animal spoken of by Col. Hamilton Smith at the 

 conclusion of his notice of the Feral Hound of St. Domingo, as the 

 Wild Dog of Mexico, and the ' Cimarron' of the Pampas, answers in 

 all respects the description of the Xibaro ; — small sized, with erect 

 ears ; bold and sagacious ; not hostile to man, but destructive to the 

 calves and foals of the wild herds ; hunting singly and in troops ; and 

 burrowing in the open country." 



Q3 



