22 
governed by the sign ce tecpatl^ the day nahui 
quiahuitl. As the birds alone were able to es- 
cape the general conflagration^ tradition states^ 
that all men were transformed into birds^ except 
one man, and one woman, who saved themselves 
in the recess of a cavern. 
Third cycle. The age of wind, or air, Ehe- 
catonathik. Its duration is 10x400+10=4010 
years. The catastrophe took place on the day 
4 wind (nahui ehecatl) of the year ce tecpatl. 
The drawing represents four times the hierogly- 
phic of the air or the wind, ehecatl. Men perish- 
ed by hurricanes ; and some were transformed 
into apes. These animals did not appear in 
Mexico before this third age. I am ignorant 
who is the divinity, that descends on the Earth 
armed with a sickle. May it not be Quetzal- 
cohuatl, the god of the air ? and may not the 
sickle signify, that the hurricane roots up the 
trees, as if they had been felled ? I doubt, how- 
ever, whether the yellow stripes indicate, as the 
Spanish commentator pretends, the form of 
clouds driven by the tempest. Monkeys are in 
general less frequent in the warm part of Mexi- 
co, than in South America. These animals un- 
dertake distant migrations, when, driven by 
hunger, or the severity of the weather, they find 
themselves compelled to abandon their primitive 
abode. I know countries in the mountainous 
parts of Peru, the inhabitants of which remem- 
