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The venado of Cubagua belongs to one of those numerous species of small American deer, which zoologists have long confounded under the vague name of Cervus mexicanus. It does not appear to be the same as the hind of the savannahs of Cayenne, or the guazuti of Paraguay, which live also in herds. Its colour is a brownish red on the back, and white under the belly; and it is spotted like the axis.
We were especially struck with the magnificent "Codex Mexicanus," a loosely-bound, bulky MS. on white leather, found among the treasures of the royal palace at the conquest of Mexico by Cortes. It is full of coloured hieroglyphics and pictures, and is known in this country through the splendid reproduction of Lord Kingsborough.
Lucien, laden with creepers wound all round his body, carried besides, at the end of his stick, the carcass of a horned snake Atropos Mexicanus which has scales standing erect behind its eyebrows, like little horns, which have obtained for it its Indian name of mazacoatl.
What the relations of these different forms are to one another has not yet been determined, but it may be conjectured that Ovis canadensis, O. nelsoni, and O. dalli differ most widely from one another; while O. stonei and O. dalli, with its forms, are close together; and O. canadensis, and O.c. auduboni are closely related; as are also O. nelsoni, O. mexicanus, and O.c. cremnobates.
Acad. Nat. Sc. Philadelphia, 2nd Series, vol. ii., 1853, p. 259. A relation of this bird, the Colaptes mexicanus, does not yield to him in economy and skill. He places his barn in the interior of a plant which is very abundant in the zone he inhabits. Insectivorous during a part of the year, he is forced to renounce this diet during the dry season.
A slender-growing species, with long and narrow leaves, and large, white flowers. P. TRIFLORUS and P. MEXICANUS are other species that might be worthy of including in a representative collection of these plants. This is a valuable genus of shrubs, all being remarkable for the abundance of white, and usually sweet-scented, flowers which they produce.
These forms, with the localities from which the types have come, are as follows: Ovis canadensis, interior of western Canada. Ovis canadensis auduboni, Bad Lands of South Dakota. Ovis nelsoni, Grapevine Mountains, boundary between California and Nevada. Ovis mexicanus, Lake Santa Maria, Chihuahua, Mexico. Ovis dalli, mountains on Forty-Mile Creek, west of Yukon River, Alaska.
Major Long remarks that "this animal which does not seem to be known to naturalists, unless it should prove to be the Mexicanus, is most probably the original of the domestic dog, so common in the villages of the Indians of this region, some of the varieties of which still remain much of the habit and manners of this species."
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