NATURAL HISTORY SOCIETY OF GLASGOW. 137 



{Ctenomijs hrasiliensis ?) in its wide distribution and abundance, 

 and is equally detested by all camp (country) people. The 

 landowner reckons up his loss in pasturage, and the common 

 Gaucho gets a " cropper " as he is running some animal, so poor 

 biscacha is pretty equally anathematized by all parties. What the 

 rabbit has proved in Tasmania the biscacha is in the provinces of 

 Cordoba, Santa Fe, and Buenos Ayres, with the sole difference 

 that Lagostomus trkliodadylus is indigenous. In the Sierra of 

 Cordoba or Tandel, or in the great plains of Buenos Ayres, down 

 as far south as Bahia Blanca, it is equally at home; and, except 

 where vigorous means are taken to put it down, always increasing. 

 The damage it does consists in the ground occupied by each 

 " Biscachero " or biscacha warren, the destruction of all pasture 

 for a radius of several yards, and the invariability of nothing but 

 weeds, thistles, etc., ever growing on the site of an old biscachero. 

 In some places, where the biscacheros are particularly numerous and 

 close together, three or four acres of ground would not afford 

 sustenance for a single sheep; to use a Spanish phrase, the ground 

 is " pelado " — bare, naked. Five biscachas are reckoned to one 

 sheep, in the consumption of pasture, and it is astonishing to find 

 how much pasturage is lost on any " estancia " (stock farm) where 

 biscachas are abundant. As a case in point, I may cite one 

 of some 64,000 acres, where the lowest estimation of the biscachas 

 is 60,000, — or rather less than one to each acre; and they occupy 

 the room of 12,000 sheep ! All these are of course rough estimates, 

 and based upon observations in one district alone, but I believe 

 they are applicable to nearly the whole province. Various are the 

 means used to extirpate this pest, but only two may be said to be 

 both practicable and thorough. Among the ineffectual methods 

 may be classed shooting, drowning out, and smoking out ; — the 

 latter operation being performed Avith a machine which forces the 

 fumes of burning sulphur, Chili pepper, old boots, etc., etc., 

 through the burrows. But where their thorough eradication is 

 desired, digging out is the plan resorted to. Gangs of Basque or 

 Italian labourers are engaged, the biscacheros counted, and the 

 price per biscachero agreed upon; the payment not to be made 

 until a fixed time after the work is finished, to guard against any 

 reappearance of biscachas. In one estancia where they were thus 

 exterminated, furrows had to be run with a plough across the land, 

 in order to get the biscacheros properly counted; and the total 



