BLAKE — PAST LIFE IN SOUTH AMERICA. 
327 
ever, were far too small to have produced the mastodon bones of 
Tarija. When this argument was pressed on the monks, they replied, 
" that the bones had swelled since they were buried in the earth." 
Castelnau naively remarks, that a like proof might demonstrate that 
the mastodon bones of Tarija might have belonged to dwarfs. This 
singular superstition is by no means confined to the monks. Don 
Francisco Antonio Casello gravely tells his readers, that " the soil of 
the town of Tariia possesses the virtue of making bones grow beyond 
measure. If a body of ordinary size is buried, and is disinterred 
after the lapse of some time, we find the bones excessively swollen." 
The English reader who scoffs at this ridiculous theory of the Tari- 
jans may, however, recollect that, in the year 1862, there are stil] a 
few writers in England who speak of " an unknown mysterious force" 
wliich has kept the species of animals distinct from each other 
throughout all time. We are not yet so far removed from the tram- 
mels of an adherence to unproven and undemonstrable assumptions 
in science to entitle us to ridicule the hypotheses which our less- 
gifted friends in Bolivia may suggest to the world. 
The genus Antilope at present is chiefly confined to the Old 
World. Eorty-seven species are found in the Old W orld, and one, 
or perhaps a second, in Xorth America. In Brazil, during the 
Pliocene period, a species {Antilope maquinensis) has been discovered 
by Lund, besides two individuals of tlie extinct genus Leptotlierium, 
allied to Qervus. The latitude of Brazil was as well qualified to sup- 
port antelopes as that of Africa or India, although, since the Plio- 
cene period, their place has been taken by the numerous species of 
small stags, the Guazutis and Brocket deer of Brazil, Colombia, and 
Mexico. 
The European dog, like the horse, was introduced into America 
by the followers of Columbus. Prior, however, to this time, there 
existed in Mexico a small lapdog, termed Alco by the Peruvians, and 
a mute silky-haired breed employed by the natives of Santo Domingo 
in the chace. These last were termed Goschis, or Gasque, which 
word seems, according to Hamilton Smith, to be corrupted from 
Guarachay, and indicates that these animals were imported by the 
Caribs from Tierra Eirme. Besides these, various species of true 
"wolves, prairie wolves, aguara wolves, aguara dogs, and aguara foxes, 
being fourteen species in all, are described by Colonel Smith. In 
Santo Domingo, and on the Pampas of South America, feral dogs are 
found, the offspring of the European races. The origin of the dogs 
of Nootka Sound, of the Mackenzie Eiver, and of the Esquimaux, is 
yet undemonstrated. In Brazil, during the Pliocene period, three 
species of dog existed. 
Mr. Waterhouse has pointed out that the existing mice of the 
New World all belong to a different genus {Hes-peromys) to those of 
the Old. Many species of fossil mice of the same natural group 
as the other American mice are found in Brazil, where their bones 
whiten the floor of the caves and fissures where they have been 
dropped by the owls, who then, as now, preyed upon the diminutive 
