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THE AMERICAN NATURALIST [Vol. XLIX 



Concerning the several varieties of ancient Inca or 

 Ancon dog that are known from well-preserved Peruvian 

 mummies, Nehring 6 is of the opinion that their remote 

 ancestry is traceable to the North American wolf {Lupus 

 accident alls var. mexicanus and rufus). The great an- 

 tiquity of domesticated dogs in South America is indi- 

 cated also by a canine skull which R. Lydekker has de- 

 scribed from the superficial deposits of Buenos Aires. 

 This dog, according to Dr. Lydekker, 7 "though appar- 

 ently contemporaneous with many of the wonderful ex- 

 tinct mammals of the Pampas, yet shows unmistakable 

 signs of affinity with domesticated breeds, although the 

 precise relationship has not been established." 



Reference having already been made to animal figures 

 in early American cartography, we may call attention in 

 closing this sketch to a memoir by Anibal Cardoso in the 

 Anales of the Buenos Aires Museum for 1912 (Vol. XV), 

 on the origin of Argentine horses. 8 The writer endeav- 

 ors to show from historical evidence that large numbers 

 of horses existed in the interior of the country prior to 

 the Spanish Conquest, and a figure of one of these ani- 

 mals drawn by Sebastian Cabot in his world-map of 1544 

 is interpreted as indicating that wild herds were seen by 

 that navigator in 1531. A portion of Cabot's map is re- 

 produced in Senor Cardoso's memoir (p. 379), and also 

 in one by J. T. Medina on the voyage of Sebastian Cabot. 



Nevertheless the conclusion appears unavoidable that, 

 had the horse actually persisted in the western hemisphere 

 down to the time of the advent of Europeans, some traces 

 of it would certainly appear in the culture of the primitive 

 inhabitants. 



" R. Lydekker/" Mostly Mammals," London, 1903, p. 204. 



8"Antigiiedad del Caballo en el Plata." On the horse in post-con- 

 quistorial times in North America see Clark Wissler, "The Influence of the 

 Horse in the Development of Plains Culture," in Amer. Anthropol, Vol. 

 XVI, 1914. 



