| OCR Text |
Show 1866.] MR. P. L. SCLATER ON THE-CAPRIMULGID^E. 581 The operation of shearing was performed as ordinarily in sheep, and the quantities obtained were as follows :-From the brown-and-white male Llama about 14 lb.; from the black female Alpaca 8 lb.; and from the black-and-white male Alpaca 8| lb. Colpaert*, one of the most recent authorities on these animals in their South American haunts, does not compare the weights and value of the fleece in the two domesticated and two wild varieties ; but he says that the Chinela, a variety of Alpaca, yields the most esteemed and heaviest kind of fleece, but it is rare that it surpasses 6 or 7 lb. With regard to the specific differences of the genus Auchenia, it is not m y intention to speak; but I may with propriety allude to the fact of their Camel-like appearance in the disrobed condition, as compared with their more sheep-like character when enveloped in their thick and long woolly fleece. As depicted in the plate, the Llama has more clearly a spotted appearance than when the fleece was upon it; this may partly be on account of the original intertwining of the fibres of the two different colours, and still more, no doubt, by the then accumulation of dirt and smoke which blackened the surface. The two Alpacas did not alter in colour so far as to make any marked difference in their aspect. The neck in all three shorn animals appears to have a far greater length proportionally to the body; and the same remark applies to the hind legs, the thighs of which are seen more than usually free from the body-a character of the family Camelidar. The body in contour is entirely transformed; and the rough sheep- or goatlike hairy carcass, the awkward, uncouth, disproportionate body, with its naked flanks and generally scraggy look, detract from grace in the animals, and render their appearance more remarkable than beautiful. From their peculiar gait and slouching ungainly manner, if but a hump were present, they would at once recall to mind a tottering young camel. 12. Additional Notes on the Caprimulgidar. By P. L. S C L A T E R , M.A., Ph.D., F.R.S., Secretary to the Society. (Plates XLV., XLVI.) Since I prepared the article on the American Caprimulgidar, read before this Society in February lastf, I have collected some further information on this subject, which I now propose to lay before the Meeting. In the first place, as regards the general arrangement of the group, * Loc. cit. p. 124. . t See P. Z. S. 1866, p. 123 et sea. It should be remarked that in this article, in page 139 (as may be easily seen by the context), an error has occurred in the references (lines 6 and 8 from the top) to figs. 10 and 11. It is fig. 10 which re- - presents the outer rectrix of Stenopsis ruficervix, and fig. 11 that of 8. bifasciata. This error has been corrected in the separate copies. |
