the town of Middelburg in Holland; it was purchased and presented to the Emperor of Germany. Gesner gives a curious figure of it, representing the animal as a comparatively colossal beast submitting itself to the guidance of a dwarfish man. The habit of "spitting" of the Lama is well known. Augustin de Zarate and Buffon speak of the Lama as having no protection save this habit, which is more than a mere ejection of saliva: the contents of the stomach are forcibly shot at the object of its annoyance. It can also kick and bite. In the intestines (as in those of some other mammals) are found Bezoar stones, or Bezards as they are variously spelt. These were once valued in medicine, and even so lately as 1847 were, according to Gay, the historian of Chili, in vogue; these concretions, comparable to the ambergris of the Whales, were supposed to be an antidote to poison.
Fig. 149.—Lama. Lama huanacos. × 1⁄12.
Extinct Camels.—The earliest cameloid type is the genus Protylopus,[1] of which we are acquainted with an imperfect skull
- ↑ See Wortman, Bull. Amer. Mus. Nat. Hist. x. 1898, p. 93.
