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Show 15! RAPID PROPAGATION OF [Ch. IX. Next to the direct agency of man, his indirect influence in multiplying the numbers of large herbivorous quadrupe~s of domesticated races, may be regarded as one of the most obvwus causes of the extermination of species. On this, and on several other grounds, the introduction of the horse, ox, and other mammalia, into America, and their rapid propagation over that continent within the last three centuries, is a fact of great importance in natural history. The extraordinary herds of wild cattle and horses which overran the plains of South America, sprung from a very few pairs first carried over by the Spaniards; and they prove that the wide geographical range of large species in great continents does not necessarily imply that they have existed there from remote periods. Humboldt observes, in his Travels *, on the authority of Azzara, that it is believed there exist, in the Pampas of Buenos Ayres, twelve million cows and three million horses, without comprising in this enumeration the cattle that have no acknowledged proprietor. In the Llanos of Caraccas, the rich hateros, or proprietors of pastoral farms, are entirely ignorant of the number of cattle they pos.. sess. The young are branded with a mark peculiar to each herd, and some of the most wealthy owners mark as many as fourteen thousand a year. In the northern plains, from the Orinoco to the lake of Maracaybo, M. Depons reckoned that one million two hundred thousand oxen, one hundred and eighty thousand horses, and ninety thousand mules, wandered at large t. In some parts of the valley of the Mississippi, especially in the country of the Osage Indians, wild horses are immensely numerous. The establishment of black cattle in America dates from Columbus's second voyage to St. Domingo. They there mul· tiplied rapidly; and that island presently became a kind of nursery from which these animals were successively trans.. ported to various parts of the continental coast, and from thence into the interior. Notwithstanding these numerous exportations, in twenty-seven years after the discovery of the • Pers. Nar., vol. iv. t Quarterly Review, vol. :ui., p. 335. Ch. IX.] DOMESTIC QUADRUPEDS IN AMERICA~ 153 island, herds of four thousand head, as we learn from Oviedo, were not uncommon, and there were even some that amounted to eight thousand. In 1587, the number of hides exported from St. Domingo alone, according to Acosta's report, was thirty-five thousand four hundred and forty-four; and in the same year there were exported sixty-four thousand three hundred and fifty from the ports of New Spain. This was in the sixty-fifth year after the taking of Mexico, previous to which event the Spaniards, who came into that country, had not been able to engage in anything else than war *. All our readers are aware that these animals are now established throughout the American continent, from Canada to Paraguay. 'rhe ass has thriven very generally in the New World; and we learn from Ulloa, that in Quito they ran wild, and multiplied in amazing numbers, so as to become a nuisance. They grazed together in herds, and, when attacked, defended them~ elves with their mouths. If a horse happened to stray mto the places where they fed, they all fell upon him, and did not cease biting and kicking till they left him dead t. The first hogs were carried to America by Columbus, and established in the island of St. Domingo the year following its discovery in November, 1493. In succeeding years they were introduced into other places where the Spaniards settled ; and, in the space of half a century, they were found established in the New World, from the latitude of ~5° north, to the 40th degree of south latitude. Sheep, also, and goats have multiplied enormously in the New World, as have also the cat and the rat, which last, as we before stated, has been imported unintentionally in ships. The dogs introduced by man, which have at different periods become wild in America, hunted in packs like the wolf and the jackal, destroying not only hogs, but the calves and foals of the wild cattle and horses. * Qunrtel"ly Review, vol. xxi., p. 335. t Ulloa's Voyage. Wood's Zoog., vol. i., p. 9. |