THE GUANACO OR WILD LLAMA 327 



besides, they need the skins of the old animal for making their 

 "toldos" or, tents, and .those of the young for their own clothing. 

 The Guanacoes are hunted with the bolas — balls connected by thongs 

 and thrown at the animals ; and the aid of Hounds is requisitioned, 

 the Guanaco Hound being apparently very similar to a smooth Lurcher 

 or the Kangaroo Hound of Australia. 



It may be mentioned that Guanacoes take to the water readily and 

 swim well, unlike their relative the Camel. The Guanaco is the wild 

 ancestor of the Llama, the only large domestic animal possessed by the 

 American aborigines at the time of the Spanish conquest of the New 

 World — in fact, the only other domestic animals found there at all 

 were the Dog, Guinea-Pig, Turkey, and Muscovy Duck. 



The Llama has a heavier coat than the wild Guanaco, and is most 

 often white in colour,, though, like most domestic animals, it varies a 

 good deal ; thus, of the pair at present , in the London Zoological 

 Gardens, the buck is black, with a white " blaze " on the face, and the 

 doe white, with the head marked with fawn-colour. Llamas breed well 

 in Europe, and are to be found in most menageries. Their original 

 use was as pack animals, and they can be ridden, but their habit of 

 spitting is highly objectionable. Apropos of this, I may mention 

 that, though this nasty trick was noticed in the earliest account of the 

 Llama, written in the middle of the sixteenth century, and though I 

 have often heard from eye-witnesses of the animal's expectoratory 

 performances, I have never seen the feat performed myself, though a 

 constant frequenter of Zoological Gardens ; and I mention this to show 

 how cautious one ought to be in disbelieving accounts of unusual 

 habits in animals, merely because one has not had personal experience 

 in any particular case. 



Another domestic breed of the Guanaco is the Alpaca, which is 

 smaller than the Llama, and usually black, or nearly so. Its fleece is 

 very long, reaching nearly to the ground, and hanging all over the 

 face. It is solely on account of this wool that the animal is bred 

 being kept in large flocks on the mountain pastures and regularly 

 shorn. The name of the animal is, indeed, more familiar than that of 



