“It is not easy to describe its general appearance, which combines some of the characters of a camel, a deer, and a goat. The body, deep at the breast but very small at the loins, is covered with long, soft, very fine hair, which on the upper parts is of a kind of fawn-colour, and beneath varies from a very pale yellow to the most beautiful snow-white. The head is provided with large ears, in general carried well back, and is covered with short grayish hair, which is darkest on the forehead. Occasionally the face is nearly black. As a rule it lives in flocks of from half a dozen to several hundreds, but solitary individuals are now and then to be met with. They are very difficult to approach sufficiently near to admit of an easy shot, as they are extremely wary, but, on being disturbed, canter off at a pace which soon puts a safe distance between them and the sportsman, even though he should be mounted. Despite their timidity, however, they are possessed of great curiosity, and will sometimes advance within a comparatively short distance of an unknown object, at which they will gaze fixedly till they take alarm, when they effect a speedy retreat. Their cry is very peculiar, being something between the belling of a deer and the neigh of a horse. It would be difficult to overestimate their numbers upon the Patagonian plains; for in whatever direction we walked we always came upon numbers of portions of their skeletons and detached bones.” Darwin, who has given an interesting account of the habits of the Guanaco in his _Naturalist’s Voyage_, says that they readily take to the water, and were seen several times at Port Valdes swimming from island to island. The Llama is only known as a domestic animal, and is chiefly met with in the southern part of Peru. Burmeister, a very competent writer on the subject, says that he is perfectly satisfied that it is the descendant of the wild Guanaco, an opinion opposed to that of Tschudi. It generally attains a larger size than the Guanaco, and is usually white or spotted with brown or black, and sometimes altogether black. The earliest and often-quoted account of this animal by Agustin de Zarate, treasurer-general of Peru in 1544, will bear repeating as an excellent summary of the general character and uses to which it was put by the Peruvians at the time of the Spanish conquest. He speaks of the Llama as a sheep, observing, however, that it is camel-like in shape though destitute of a hump:—