SPECIES
OF
INDIAN
DOGS.
509
less improperly b e called ants' nests, is in much request in a region whoso inhabitants are o f so turbulent a character. A n e w species o f ant, o f a fine emerald-green ( F o r m i c a spinicollis), collects for its habitation a c o t t o n - d o w n , o f a yellowish-brown c o l o u r , and very soft to the t o u c h , from the leaves of a melastomacea. I have no d o u b t that the yesca o r touchwood of ants o f the U p p e r O r i n o c o (the animal is found, we were assured, only south o f Attires) will one day b e c o m e an article o f trade. This substance is very superior t o the ants' nests o f C a y e n n e , which are e m p l o y e d in the hospitals o f E u r o p e , b u t can rarely b e p r o c u r e d . O n the 7th o f J u n e we took leave with regret o f F a t h e r Ramon Bueno. O f t h e ten missionaries w h o m we had found in different parts o f the vast e x t e n t o f Guiana, he alone a p peared to m e t o b e earnestly attentive t o all that regarded the natives. H e hoped to return in a short time t o M a d r i d , Where he intended to publish the result o f his researches on the figures and characters that cover the rocks o f Uruana. In the countries we had j u s t passed through, b e t w e e n the M e t a , the Arauca, and the A p u r e , there were found, at the time o f the first expeditions t o t h e O r i n o c o , in 1 5 3 5 , those mute dogs, called by the natives maios, and auries. This | 'act is curious in many points o f view. W e cannot doubt that the d o g , whatever f a t h e r ( l i b may assert, is indigenous in South A m e r i c a . T h e different Indian languages furnish words t o designate this animal, which are scare. |y derived from any E u r o p e a n t o n g u e . T o this day the word auri, mentioned three hundred years ago b y A l o n z o de Herrera, is found in the M a y p u r e . The dogs we saw at the O r i n o c o may perhaps have descended from those that the Spaniards carried to the coast o f C a r a c a s ; hut it is not less certain that there existed a race o f d o g s before the conquest, in Peru, in N e w Granada, and in Guiana, resembling o u r shepherds' d o g s . T h e allco o f t h e natives of Peru. and in general all the d o g s that we found in the wildest countries o f South A m e r i c a , bark frequently. The first historians, however, till speak o f m u t e d o g s (perros mudos). They still exist in C a n a d a ; and. what appears t o me w o r t h y o f attention, it was this d u m b variety that Was eaten in' preference in M e x i c o , * and at the O r i n o c o . * See, on the Mexican techichi, and on the numerous difficulties that