HISTORY OF MEXICO. 115 



V. The quadrupeds and reptiles of America paffed by- 

 different places from the one continent to the other. 

 Amongft the American beads, there are fome whofe na- 

 tures are averfe to cold ; fuch as apes, dantes, crocodiles, 

 &c. There are others, whofe difpoiitions lead them to 

 cold countries, as martens, rein-deer, and gluttons. 

 The former could not go to America by the frigid zone, 

 becaufe in that cafe they would be acting violently 

 againfl their genius, and would nqt furvive the paffage. 



The apes which are in New Spain paffed there certain- 

 ly by South America (/'). The centre of their popula- 

 tion is the country under the equator, and between it and 

 the fourteenth or fifteenth degree of latitude ; in pro- 

 portion to the diflance from the equator their numbers 

 decreafe, and beyond the tropics there are none to be 

 found, except in fome diftricls which from fome parti- 

 cularity of fituation are as hot as the equinoctial lands. 

 Who, therefore, can imagine that fuch fpecies of ani- 

 mals ftiould have travelled to the new world through 

 the rigid climate of the north ? It may be faid, that it 

 is not improbable that they were tranfported by men, 

 as they were valued for their extravagant refemblance 

 and ridiculous imitations of men. But befides that, the 

 argument which this forms in regard to apes, may be 

 adduced with refpecl: to many other quadrupeds which 

 have no value to make them be coveted, but rather many 

 bad qualities to make them be avoided ; it is not to be 

 believed, that men would have conducted with them 



fo 



(i) Don Ferdinand d'Alba Ixtlilxochitl, an Indian well informed in the anti- 

 quities of his nation, fays in his Univerfal Hiftory of New Spain, that there 

 were no apes in the country of Anahuac; that the firft which appeared there 

 came from the quarter of the South, after the period of the great winds. The 

 Tlafcalans make a fable of this event, and fay, that the world was deftroyed 

 oKce by wind, and that the few men who furvived were transformed into apes. 



