The Curiacou of Guiana is an animal of the nature and size of our largest roe-bucks; the male has horns, which he sheds every year, but the female has none. At Cayenne it is called the Hind of the Woods. There is another species, called the little cariacou, or hind of the fens, which is considerably smaller than the former, and the male has no horns. From the resemblance of the names I suspected that the cariacou of Cayenne might be the caguacu, or cougouacou-ara, of Brasil, and comparing the accounts given by Piso and Marcgrave of the latter with the cariacou I had alive, I was persuaded they were the same animal, yet so different from our roe-buck as to justify our considering them distinct species.
The tapir, cabiai, tajacou, ant-eater, sloth, cariacou, lama, pacos, bison, puma, juguar, coujuar, juguarat, and the mountain-cat, &c. are therefore the largest animals of the new continent. The middle-sized and small ones are the cuandus, or gouandous, agouti, coati, paca, opossum, cavies, and armadillos; all which I believe are peculiar to the new world, although our latest nomenclators speak of two other species of armadillos, one in the East Indies, and the other in Africa; but we have only the testimony of the author of the description of Seba’s cabinet for their existence, and that authority is insufficient to confirm the fact, for misnomers frequently happen in the collections of natural objects. An animal, for example, is purchased under the name of a Ternat, or American bat, and another under that of the East India Armadillo; they are then announced by those names in a descriptive catalogue, and are adopted by our nomenclators; but when examined more closely the American bat proves to be one of our own country, and so may the Indian or African armadillo be merely an armadillo of America.
Hitherto we have not spoken of Apes, their history requiring a particular discussion. As the word Ape is a generic term applied to a number of species, it is not surprising that it should be said they abound in the southern parts of both continents; but it is for us here to enquire whether the apes of Asia and Africa be the same animals as those so called in America, and whether from among more than thirty species of apes, which I have examined alive, one of them is alike common to both continents.
The Satyr, Ourang-outang, or Man of the Woods, as it is indiscriminately termed, seems to differ less from man than from the ape, and is only to be found in Africa or the south of Asia. The Gibbon, whose fore legs, or arms, are as long as the whole body, even the hind legs included, is a native of the East Indies alone. Neither of these have tails. The ape, properly so termed, whose hair is greenish, with a small intermixture of yellow, has no tail, belongs to Africa, and a few other parts of the old continent, but is not to be found in the new. It is the same also with the Cynocephali-apes, of which there are two or three species; neither of them having any tails, at least they are so short as scarcely to be perceivable. All apes which are without tails, and whose muzzles, from being short, bear a strong resemblance to the face of man, are real apes; and the species above-mentioned are all natives of the old continent, and unknown in the new; from whence we may pronounce that there are no real apes in America.
The Baboon, an animal larger than the dog, and whose body is pursed up like that of the hyæna, is exceedingly different from those we have noticed, and has a short tail: it is equally endowed with inclination and powers for mischief, and is only to be met with in the desarts of the southern parts of the old continent.
Besides these without tails, or with very short ones, (which all belong to the old continent) almost all the large ones with long tails, are peculiar to Africa. There are few even of the middling size in America, but those called little long-tailed monkeys are very numerous, of which there are several species; and when we give the particular history of these animals, it will appear the American monkeys differ very much from the apes of Asia and Africa. The Maki, of which there are three or four species, has a near resemblance to the monkeys with long tails, but is another animal, and peculiar also to the old continent. All the animals, therefore, of Asia and Africa, which are known by the name of apes, are equally as strange in America as the rhinoceros or tiger; and the more we investigate this subject, the more we shall be convinced that the animals of the southern parts of one continent did not exist in the others and the few found in them must have been carried thither by men. Between the coasts of Brasil and Guinea, there are 500 leagues of sea; and between those of the East Indies and Peru, the distance exceeds 2000 leagues: It appears, therefore, that all those animals which from their nature are incapable of supporting cold climates, or, if supporting, cannot propagate therein, are confined on two or three sides by seas they cannot cross, and on the other by lands so cold they cannot live in them. At this one general fact, then, however singular it may at first appear, our wonder ought to cease, namely, that not one of the animals of the torrid zone of one continent, are natives of the torrid zone of the other.
[ANIMALS COMMON TO BOTH CONTINENTS.]