There are also to be seen in the said country, some civettes, [ [81] ] which come from Peru, where there are quantities.
There comes from Peru to New Spain a certain kind of sheep which, like horses, carry burthens of more than four hundred pounds for days together. They are of the size of an ass; the neck very long, the head middling; the wool very long, and which more resembles hair like that of a goat than wool. They have not horns like our sheep, and are very good to eat, but their flesh is not so delicate as that of our sheep. [ [82] ]
The country is much peopled with stags and hinds, roe-bucks, wild boars, foxes, hares, rabbits, and other animals which we have in our parts, and from which they are not at all different.
There is a kind of little animal of the size of prawns, which fly by night, and make such light in the air that one would say that they were so many little candles. If a man had three or four of these little creatures, which are not larger than a filbert, he could read as well at night as with a wax light. [ [83] ]
In the woods and in the plains are to be found numbers of crabs, [ [84] ] like to those which are found in the sea, and are also as common on land as in the sea elsewhere.
There is another small kind of animal like a crawfish, excepting that they have the hinder parts devoid of shell; but they have this property—of seeking the empty shells of snails and lodging therein the part which is uncovered, dragging the shell always after them, and are only to be dislodged by force. [ [85] ] The fishermen collect these little beasts in the woods, and make use of them for fishing; and when they wish to catch fish, having taken the little animals from the shell, they attach them by the middle of the body to their lines instead of hooks, then throw them into the sea, and when the fish think to swallow them, they seize the fish with their two powerful claws and will not let them go; and by these means, the fishermen catch fish of the weight even of five or six pounds.
AN INDIAN FEAST.
I have seen a bird which is named "pacho del ciello," [ [86] ] that is to say, bird of the heavens, which name is given to it because it is continually in the air without ever coming to the earth till it falls dead. It is of the size of a sparrow. Its head is very small, the beak short; part of the body greenish-brown, the rest somewhat red. It has a tail of more than two feet in length, almost like an aigrette, and singularly large. With respect to the body, it has no feet. It is said that the female lays one egg only on the back of the male, by whose heat the said egg is hatched, and when the bird has left the shell, it remains in the air, in which it lives like the rest of its kind. I have only seen one, which our general bought for one hundred and fifty crowns. They are to be caught towards the coast of Chile, which is a great extent of Terra-Firma, extending from Peru as far as the Straits of Magellan, which the Spaniards are examining, and are at war with the savages of the country, where, it is said, mines of gold and silver are found.
I think it not out of place here to say that ebony wood comes from a very high tree, like to the oak: the outside of the bark is whitish and the heart very black.