nded with a mark
peculiar to each herd, and some of the most wealthy owners mark as many as
fourteen thousand a year. In the northern plains, from the Orinoco to the
lake of Maracaybo, M. Depons reckoned that one million two hundred
thousand oxen, one hundred and eighty thousand horses, and ninety thousand
mules, wandered at large. In some parts of the valley of the Mississippi,
especially in the country of the Osage Indians, wild horses are immensely
numerous.

The establishment of black cattle in America dates from Columbus's second
voyage to St. Domingo. They there multiplied rapidly; and that island
presently became a kind of nursery from which these animals were
successively transported to various parts of the continental coast, and
from thence into the interior. Notwithstanding these numerous exportations,
in twenty-seven years after the discovery of the island, herds of four
thousand head, as we learn from Oviedo, were not uncommon, and there were
even some that amounted to eight thousand. In 1587, the number of hides
exported from St. Domingo alone, according to Acosta's report, was
thirty-five thousand four hundred and forty-four; and in the same year
there were exported sixty-four thousand three hundred and fifty from the
ports of New Spain. This was in the sixty-fifth year after the taking of
Mexico, previous to which event the Spaniards, who came into that country,
had not been able to engage in any thing else than war. All our readers
are aware that these animals are now established throughout the American
continent, from Canada to Paraguay.

The ass has thriven very generally in the New World; and we learn from
Ulloa, that in Quito they ran wild, and multiplied in amazing numbers, so
as to become a nuisance. They grazed together in herds, and, when attacked,
defended themselves with their mouths. If a horse happened to stray into
the places where they fed, they all fell upon him, and did not cease
biting and kicking till they left him dead.

The first hogs were carried to America by Columbus, and established in the
island of St. Domingo the year following its discovery in November, 1493.
In succeeding years they were introduced into other places where the
Spaniards settled; and, in the space of half a century, they were found
established in the New World, from the latitude of 25 deg. north, to the
40th deg. of south latitude. Sheep, also, and goats have multiplied
enormously in the New World, as have als