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ôf dog to tlie techici^^ a dumb animal, resembling 

 the dog in its appearance, but of a very different 

 genus. This external resemblance has given rise 

 eventually to the opinion that the American dogs 

 never bark, and many naturalists, who incautiously 

 adopted this error, have been the means of perpetuat- 

 ing it to the present day. Another opinion, equally 

 destitute of foundation, is, that the European dogs 

 that were left on the island of Juan Fernandez, at the 

 time it was uninhabited, had lost their voices, and 

 were unable to bark, which I have been well assured 

 by the present inhabitants is an utter falsehood. 



The erroneous names given to particular animals, 

 many of which are still retained, have proved very 

 injurious to the natural history of America. From 

 this source have proceeded those visionary hypo- 

 theses of the degeneracy of its quadrupeds, the sup- 

 posed little stags, bears and boars of that country, 

 considered as so many pigmy breeds, although they 

 ' have no other connection with the pretended primi- 

 tive race than these ill applied names. A very re- 

 spectable m.odern author mentions as a proof of this 

 degeneracy, the ant-eater, called by some authors the 

 ant-bear, and considered as a degenerate species of 

 the bear. But this quadruped differs essentially 

 from the bear in other respects than its size, and 

 all well informed naturalists are agreed that this ani- 

 mal belongs neither to the genus nor the order of 

 bears ; it is of course ridiculous to bring forward in 



* The crab-eater, or dog crab-eater, so called from its feeding 

 principally upon crabs. 



