ECONOMICS OF THE LAMA 
and not merely, as Buffon said, the power of spitting. 
Spitting, it may be observed, is the merest éuphemism 
for what the lama really does do. It ejects the whole 
contents of its stomach upon the offending one. It 
will also bite and kick, and can do both effectively. 
When inclined to be “nasty” it lays back its ears in 
an equine manner. In spite of this obvious ill-temper, 
the Chilian naturalist Gay (no relation to the poet and 
fabulist, though some of his statements would seem to be 
efforts of the imagination) described the lama in good 
Castilian as “‘ suave, familiar, timido y muy curioso.”’ 
This is inadequate. We require more evidence than 
disposition and outward appearance for the assertion 
that a lama is a camel. It is a member of the family 
Camelide or group Tylopoda by virtue of the facts 
that (r) the limbs are not and have not the least trace 
of the fourth and fifth toes of which rudiments exist 
in other Artiodactyles ; (2) the less complicated nature 
of the stomach ; (3) the presence of incisor teeth in the 
upper jaw which occupy the place of the callous pad 
of the ruminants against which the lower incisors bite. 
There are of course other anatomical facts which 
separate this group from the remaining Artiodactyles, 
but the three mentioned will suffice for us. The lama, 
like the camel, has been, and is, used as a beast of 
burden. Strings of lamas carried down gold from 
the mines of Potosi in Peru at the order of the Incas 
of Peru. The Spaniards when they discovered and 
conqured Peru thought of introducing the lama into 
Spain and made efforts in that direction. But appar- 
ently the lama will not thrive away from its native 
mountains. They also provide cloth and mutton and 
even bezoar stones. 
Bezoar stones are concretions found in the stomach, 
and are thus very analogous to the ambergris of the 
sperm whale, which is also a biliary concretion. -The 
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