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For their hunting associations see Sir E. Tennant's Natural History of Ceylon, quoted in Romanes's Animal Intelligence, p. 432. See Emil Huter's letter in L. Buchner's Liebe. With regard to the viscacha it is very interesting to note that these highly-sociable little animals not only live peaceably together in each village, but that whole villages visit each other at nights.
The Peruvian hunter used snares made of twisted horse-hair, instead of the spring wire employed by our gamekeepers and poachers. The chinchilla is a much more beautiful creature than the viscacha, and is a better-known animal, its soft and beautifully-marbled fur being an article of fashionable wear in the cities of Europe.
The lady reader will be shocked to learn that the head of the viscacha family, probably copying a bad example from the ostrich, his neighbor, is also very unamiable with his "better half," and inhabits bachelor's quarters, which he keeps all to himself, away from his family. The food of this strange dog-rabbit is roots, and his powerful teeth are well fitted to root them up.
The colour of the chinchilla is known to everybody, since its soft, velvety fur is highly prized by ladies as an article of dress, and may be seen in every London fur-shop. The animal is of a beautiful marbled grey, white and black, with pure white feet. The fur of the viscacha is not so pretty, being of a brownish and white mixture.
Before I got away they have been fighting over it again in their haste to suck the heart's blood. The pest of Australia is the rabbit, but, strange to say, I never found one in South America. In their place is the equally destructive viscacha or prairie dog a much larger animal, probably three or four times the size, having very low, broad head, little ears, and thick, bristling whiskers.
"Then there is the taruco, a kind of deer, the viscacha, which is a big rat, the otoc, a sort of wild dog, or fox, and the ucumari, a black bear with a white nose. This bear is often found on lofty mountain tops, but only when driven there in search of food. "The condors, of course, are big birds of prey in the Andes.
The people were very religious, and no rain having fallen for five months, had concluded to carry around a large image of the Virgin they had, and show her the dry crops. I rode on, but did not get wet! "A poor girl got very severely burnt, and the remedy applied was a poultice of mashed ears of viscacha. The burn did not heal, and so a poultice of pig's dung was put on.
The chinchilla, and its near relative the viscacha, are two little animals of the rodent, or grass-eating kind, that inhabit the very highest mountains of Peru and Chili. They are nearly of the same size, and each about as big as a rabbit, which in habits they very much resemble. They have long tails, however, which the rabbit has not, though the latter beats them in the length of his ears.
The colour of the chinchilla is known to everybody, since its soft, velvety fur is highly prized by ladies as an article of dress, and may be seen in every London fur-shop. The animal is of a beautiful marbled grey, white and black, with pure white feet. The fur of the viscacha is not so pretty, being of a brownish and white mixture.
There the biscacha, or viscacha as it is indifferently spelt plays pretty much the same part as the rabbit in our northern lands. It is, however, a much larger animal, and of a quite different species or genus the lagostoinus trichodactylus.
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