Mazame, in the Mexican language, was the name of the stag, or rather a generic name, including the whole race of stags, fallow-deer, and roe-bucks. Hernandes, Recchi, and Fernandes, who have transmitted this name to us, distinguish two species of mazames, both common in Mexico and New Spain. The first and largest, to which they give the simple name of _mazame_, has horns like those of the roe-buck of Europe, that is, about six or seven inches in length, with the extremities divided into two points, and a single antler. The second, called _temamaçame_, is much less, and has but a single horn, and without any antlers. These two animals seem to be roe-bucks, the first being the same species as the European roe-buck, and the second only a variety of it. It also appears, that these mazames and temamaçames of Mexico are the same as the _cuguacu-apara_, and the _cuguacu-été_ of Brasil, and that in Cayenne the first is called _cariacou_, (_fig. 157._) or the forest hind; the second, _the small cariacou_, or _the hind of the marshes_. Though we are the first who have pointed out these relations, yet we should not have presumed that there were either difficulties or doubts on this subject, if Seba had not mentioned the mazame and the temamaçame as two different animals: they are not roe-bucks with solid and branched horns, but gazelles with hollow and wrinkled ones: they are not animals of New Spain, as this author describes them, but natives of Africa. These errors of Seba have been adopted by most authors who have written since. They have not suspected that the animals mentioned by Seba, under the names of mazame and temamaçame, were the same as those mentioned by Hernandes, Recchi, and Fernandes. The confusion of the names has been followed by a confusion of the animals, and, in consequence, some naturalists have indicated these animals by the name of chevrotains, and others by that of gazelles, or goats. It appears that Linnæus suspected this error, for he has not adopted it. He has placed the mazame in the list of stags, and has thought, as we do, that the Mexican mazame is the same animal as the cuguacu of Brasil. To demonstrate what we have advanced, we will suppose that there were neither gazelles, nor chevrotains, in New Spain, or in any other part of America, and that all those, as well as goats, which are at present there, have been carried from the old continent; that the true mazame of Mexico is the same animal as the cuguacu-apara of Brasil; that the name _cuguacu_ is pronounced _couguacou_; and that, by corruption, this animal is called _cariacou_ at Cayenne, from whence we had a living one sent us by this name of _cariacou_. We shall now endeavour to find out what species of animals these may be to which Seba has applied the names mazame and temamaçame, for to destroy an error it is not sufficient to reject it, but we should also explain the cause and demonstrate the effects.