SPECIES OP INDIAN DOGS. 
509 
loss improperly be called ants' nests, is in much request in a 
region whose inhabitants are of so turbulent a character. 
A new species of ant, of a fine emerald-green (Formica 
spmicollis), collects for its habitation a cotton-down of a 
yellowish- brown colour, and very soft to the touch, from the 
leaves of a melastomacea. I have no doubt that the yesca 
or touchwood of ants of the Upper Orinoco (the animal i s 
round, we were assured, only south of Aturcs) will one day 
become an article of trade. This substance is very superior 
to the ants nests of Cayenne, which are employed in the 
hospitals of Europe, but can rarely be procured. 
On the 7th o± June we took leave with regret of Father 
Eamon Bueno. Of the ten missionaries whom we had found 
m different parts of the vast extent of Guiana, he alone ap- 
peared to me to be earnestly attentive to all that regarded 
the natives. He hoped to return in a short time to Madrid 
where he intended to publish the result of his researches 
on the figures and characters that cover the rocks of Uruana. 
, -*■? countries we had just passed through, between 
the JVleta, the Arauca, and the Apure, there were found at 
the time of the first expeditions to the Orinoco, in 1535 
those mute dogs, called by the natives maios, and awries 
this fact is curious m many points of view. We cannot 
doubt that the dog, whatever Father Gili may assert is 
indigenous m South America. The different Indian lan- 
guages furnish words to designate this animal, which are 
scarcely derived from any European tongue. To this day 
the word ami, mentioned three hundred ' years ago bv 
Alonzo de Herrera, is found in the Maypure. The dogs 
we saw at the Orinoco may perhaps have descended from 
those that the Spaniards carried to the coast of Caracas ; 
but it is not less certain that there existed a race of dogs 
before the conquest, m Peru, in New Granada, and m 
Grnana, resemblmg our shepherds’ dogs. The allco of the 
natives of Peru, and m general all the dogs that we found 
J? the eldest countries of South America, bark frequently. 
Ihe first historians, however, all speak of mute dogs (perros 
mudos). They still exist in Canada; and, what appears 
to me worthy of attention, it was this dumb variety that 
was eaten in preference in Mexico,* and at the Orinoco. 
* See, on the Mexican techich, and on the numerous difficulties that 
