The Headwaters of the Paraguay 115 



claws. Miller told us that he once saw one of them 

 kill a dog. They feed on all small mammals, birds, and 

 reptiles, and even on some large ones; they kill iguanas; 

 Cherrie saw a rattling chase through the trees, a coati 

 following an iguana at full speed. We heard the rush 

 of a couple of tapirs, as they broke away in the jungle 

 in front of the dogs, and headed, according to their 

 custom, for the river ; but we never saw them. One of 

 the party shot a bush deer — a very pretty, graceful crea- 

 ture, smaller than our whitetail deer, but kin to it and 

 doubtless the southernmost representative of the white- 

 tail group. 



The whitetail deer — ^using the word to designate a 

 group of deer which can neither be called a subgenus 

 with many species, nor a widely spread species diverging 

 into many varieties — is the only North American species 

 which has spread down into and has outlying representa- 

 tives in South America. It has been contended that the 

 species has spread from South America northward. I 

 do not think so ; and the specimen thus obtained furnished 

 a probable refutation of the theory. It was a buck, and 

 had just shed its small antlers. The antlers are, there- 

 fore, shed at the same time as in the north, and it appears 

 that they are grown at the same time as in the north. 

 Yet this variety now dwells in the tropics south of the 

 equator, where the spring, and the breeding season for 

 most birds, comes at the time of the northern fall in 

 September, October, and November. That the deer is 

 an intrusive immigrant, and that it has not yet been in 

 South America long enough to change its mating season 

 in accordance with the climate, as the birds — geologically 



