CAMELIDA 303 
when one Indian had killed a sheep his neighbours came and took 
what they wanted, and then another Indian killed a sheep in his 
turn.” 
The disagreeable habit here noticed of spitting in the face of 
persons whose presence is obnoxious is common to all the group, as 
may be daily witnessed in specimens in confinement in the 
menageries of Europe. One of the principal labours to which the 
Llamas were subjected at the time of the Spanish conquest was 
that of bringing down ore from the mines in the mountains. 
Gregory de Bolivar estimated that in his day as many as three 
hundred thousand were employed in the transport of the produce 
of the mines of Potosi alone; but since the introduction of horses, 
mules, and donkeys the importance of the Llama as a beast of 
burden has greatly diminished. 
The Alpaca, though believed by many naturalists to be a variety 
of the Vicugna, is more probably, like the Llama, derived from the 
Guanaco, having the naked callosities on the hind limbs, and the 
relatively large skull of the latter, It is usually found in a 
domesticated or semi-domesticated state, being kept in large flocks 
which graze on the level heights of the Andes of southern Peru 
and northern Bolivia at an elevation of from 14,000 to 16,000 feet 
above the sea-level, throughout the year. It is smaller than the 
Llama, and, unlike that animal, is not used as a beast of burden, 
but is valued only for its wool, of which the Indian blankets and 
ponchas are made. Its colour is usually dark brown or black. 
Mention has already been made of the occurrence of fossil 
Llamas in America, but some diversity of view obtains as to the 
generic position of some of these forms, owing to variations in their 
dental formula. Remains apparently referable to the existing 
species occur in the cavern-deposits of Brazil. In the Pleistocene 
of Mexico we meet with 4. (Palauchenia) magna, which attained 
the size of a Camel, and had always two, and occasionally three, 
lower premolars ; while in one South American Pleistocene species, 
which has been generically separated as Hemiauchenia, there were 
invariably three premolars in each jaw. In A. (Holomeniscus) 
hesterna, from the Pleistocene of North America, which was equal 
in size to A. magnu, the premolars were reduced to one in each 
jaw; and the same condition obtains in 4. (Eschatius) vitakeriana, 
where, however, the upper one is of simpler structure. 
Extinct Cameloids.— Until within the last few years the existence 
of two genera having so very much in common as the Camels and 
the Llamas, and yet so completely isolated geographically, had not 
received any satisfactory explanation ; for the old idea that they in 
some way “represented” each other in the two hemispheres of the 
world was a mere fancy without philosophical basis. The dis- 
coveries made mostly within the past twenty years of a vast and 
