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Updated: June 27, 2025
The bizcacha is well known to form a prominent feature in the zoology of the Pampas. It cannot, like the agouti, subsist on the gravelly and desert plains of Patagonia, but prefers a clayey or sandy soil, which produces a different and more abundant vegetation. Near Mendoza, at the foot of the Cordillera, it occurs in close neighbourhood with the allied alpine species.
Upon asking at a house whether robbers were numerous, I was answered, "The thistles are not up yet;" the meaning of which reply was not at first very obvious. There is little interest in passing over these tracts, for they are inhabited by few animals or birds, excepting the bizcacha and its friend the little owl.
Therefore, we must suppose either that all Rodents, including the bizcacha, branched off from some ancient Marsupial, which will naturally have been more or less intermediate in character with respect to all existing Marsupials; or that both Rodents and Marsupials branched off from a common progenitor, and that both groups have since undergone much modification in divergent directions.
As we were riding along, the dogs found and killed a bizcacha, in a bank. Just as Mr. Elliott had pulled it out, and had laid it, dead, in the field, its little companion owl arrived, and appeared to be in the most dreadful state of mind.
It is on these plains that the little bizcacha in vast numbers form their burrows; by the side of which, during the day, their small friends the owls of the Pampas take up their posts, and watch the passers-by. Vast herds of horses and cattle now roam in unrestrained freedom across them. Here the tall rhea, the American ostrich, with outstretched wings runs swiftly across the plain.
It is said to contain 60,000 inhabitants. Monte Video, the second town of importance on the banks of the Plata, has 15,000. Excursion to St. Fe Thistle Beds Habits of the Bizcacha Little Owl Saline Streams Level Plain Mastodon St.
In La Plata the puma preys chiefly on deer, ostriches, bizcacha, and other small quadrupeds; it there seldom attacks cattle or horses, and most rarely man. In Chile, however, it destroys many young horses and cattle, owing probably to the scarcity of other quadrupeds: I heard, likewise, of two men and a woman who had been thus killed.
On these same plains of La Plata, we see the agouti and bizcacha, animals having nearly the same habits as our hares and rabbits and belonging to the same order of Rodents, but they plainly display an American type of structure.
The evening was calm and still; the shrill noise of the mountain bizcacha and the faint cry of a goatsucker were occasionally to be heard. Besides these, few birds, or even insects, frequent these dry, parched mountains. 17th. In the morning we climbed up the rough mass of greenstone which crowns the summit.
A great number of the plants and animals were absolutely the same as, or most closely allied to, those of Patagonia. We here have the agouti, bizcacha, three species of armadillo, the ostrich, certain kinds of partridges and other birds, none of which are ever seen in Chile, but are the characteristic animals of the desert plains of Patagonia.
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