nagement known in Spain by the name of Mesta, by which the sheep change their climate - with the seasons, and are always in harmony with them. Nothing is to be feared for ages from the prejudice which these travelling flocks might occasion to Mexican agriculture. At present the finest wool is reckoned to be that of the Intendancy of Valladolid.

It is worthy of remark, that neither the common hog, * nor the hens to be found in all the islands of the South Sea, were known to the Mexicans. The Picari (Sus tajassu) to be frequently met with in the cottages of the natives of South America, might have easily been reduced to a domestic state; but this animal is only fit for the region of plains. Of the two varieties of hog which are now

Pedro de Cieça, and Garcilasso de la Vega, have preserved in their works the names of the Colonists who first reared in America, the domestic animals of Europe. They relate that in the middle of the 16th century, two hogs cost at Peru 8000 livres, a camel 35,000, an ass 7700, a cow 1200, and a sheep 200 livres. Cieça Chronica del Peru (Antwerp 1554) p. 65. Garcilasso, T. i. p. 328. These enormous prices besides proving the scarcity of the objects sold, prove also the abundance of the precious metals. General Belcalazar, who had purchased at Buza a sow for 4000 francs could not resist the temptation of eating her at a feast. Such was the luxury which prevailed in the army of the Conquistadores

the most common in Mexico, the one was introduced from Europe, and the other from the Philippine Islands. They have multiplied amazingly on the Central Table Land, where the valley of Toluca carries on a very lucrative trade in bacon.

Before the conquest there were very few poultry among the natives of the new continent. The maintainance of these birds, require particular care in countries recently cleared, where the forests abound in carnivorous quadrupeds of every kind. Besides, the inhabitant of the Tropics does not feel the want of domestic animals so much as the inhabitant of the temperate zone, because he is freed by the fertility of the soil from the necessity of labouring a great extent of ground, and because the lakes and rivers are covered with an innumerable quantity of birds, easily caught, and yielding an abundant nourishment. A European traveller is astonished to see the savages of South America bestowing extreme pains in taming monkeys, Manaviri (Ursus caudivolvula) or squirrels, while they never endeavour to tame a great number of useful animals, contained in the neighbouring forests. However, the most civilized tribes of the new continent, reared in their stable-yards before the arrival of the Spaniards, several gallinaceous birds, as hoccos, (Crax nigra, C. globicera,

and C. pauxi) turkies, (meleagris gallo-pavo) several species of pheasants, ducks, and moorhens, yacous, or guans, (penelope, pava de monte) and aras, (psittacci macrouri) which are considered delicate eating when young. At this period, the cock, a native of the East Indies, and common to the Sandwich Islands, was totally unknown in America. This fact, important in its connection with the migration of the Malay tribes, has been contested in Spain since the end of the 16th century. Learned Etymologists proved that the Peruvians must have had hens previous to the discovery of the New World, because the language of the Incas designates the cock by a particular word, gualpa. They knew not that gualpa or huallpa, is a contraction of Atahuallpa, and that the natives of Cuzco gave in derision the name of a prince detested on account of the cruelties exercised by him against the family of Huescar, to the cocks brought by the Spaniards, imagining, which appears strange enough to the ears of a European, they found some resemblance between the crowing of that bird, and the name of Atahuallpa. This anecdote, to be found in the work of Garcilasso (T. i. p. 331) was related to me in 1802, at Caxamarca, where I saw in the family of the Astorpilco, the descendants of the last Inca of Peru. These poor Indians

inhabit the ruins of the palace of Atahuallpa. Garcilasso relates that the Indians imitated the crowing of the cock, by pronouncing in cadence words of four syllables. The partisans of Huescar had composed burlesque songs in derision of Atahuallpa, and three of his generals, named Quilliscacha, Chalchuchina, and Ruminavi. When we consult languages as historical monuments, we must carefully distinguish what is ancient from what has been naturalyzed by custom. The Peruvian word for a cat micitu, is as modern as huallpa. The Peruvians formed micitu from the radical miz, because they observed that the Spaniards made use of it in calling the cat, and they believed, therefore, miz to be the name of the animal.

It is a very singular phisiological phenomenon, that on the Table Land of the city of Cuzco, more elevated and colder than that of Mexico, hens have only begun to season to the climate, and to propagate within the last thirty years. Till that period, all the chickens perished immediately after hatching. At present, the different varieties of hens, especially those of Mosambique, of which the flesh is black, have become common in both hemispheres, wherever the people of the old continent have penetrated. Several tribes of, Savage Indians, who live in the vicinity of European

settlements have procured them. When we were at Tomependa, on the banks of the river Amazons, we saw several families of Xibaros Indians, who had established themselves at Tatumbero in an almost inaccessible place between the cataracts of Yaraquisa and Patorumi; and several hens were seen in the huts of these savages, when they were visited for the first time, some years ago.

New Spain has supplied Europe with the largest and most useful of domestic gallinaceous birds, the turkey (totolin or huexolotl) which was formerly found wild on the back of the Cordilleras, from the Isthmus of Panama to New England. Cortez relates that several thousands of these birds which he calls hens (gallinas) were fed in the poultry-yards of the castles of Montezuma. From Mexico the Spaniards carried them to Peru, to Terra Firma, (Castilla del Oro) and the West India Islands, where Oviedo described them in 1515. Hernandez even then very well observed that the wild turkies of Mexico were much larger than the domestic ones. The former are only now to be found in the northern provinces. They withdraw towards the north in proportion as the population increases, and consequently, the forests become more rare. An intelligent traveller to whom we owe a very interesting description of the countries to the west of the