INTRODUCTION. 9] 
pean, demands at least that we should suspend our 
opinion until this question be better elucidated. As 
for those of America, the half reclaimed of the north 
is presumed to refer to our description of a domesti- 
cated individual that had been the property of the 
celebrated Indian chief Tecumséh, one which we 
regarded as coming nearer to the Coyotl of Mexico 
than the wolf: neither that specimen nor others of 
the same stock that came under our observation, 
were either gaunt or long-legged; and with regard 
to the South American partially tamed species, we 
there referred to the Aguara* dogs of the Caribs, 
Tapuias, and Arookas, all seemingly allied to the 
wild dogs of the primeval woods along the Oro- 
noque. We may therefore conclude, that reasoning 
upon such a statement, where the word dogs was 
used, is mistaking the common acceptation of that 
name for the generical term which naturalists, for 
the convenience of classification, have adopted and 
applied in a more extended form. On this subject 
our language is deficient in a sufficiently correct 
* Aguara is one of those indefinite appellations which ex- 
tend over a vast surface of America. It would seem to be 
derived from the Mexican wolf or fox, whose cry is said to 
repeat the sounds Agou-a-a! but, in other places, it is a fox, 
a wolf, a feline animal; we have heard it even bestowed on 
several species of fishes. This name is given with some syl- 
lable before or after, or both before and after the word, and 
appears to be an epithet. In the East Indies the same thing 
occurs, for there Beriah is a name applied both to the wolf 
and hyena. The Dhole appears to be in a similar predica- 
ment. 
