NATURAL HISTORY SOCIETY OF GLASGOW. 345 



tranquilly, only scuttling into the water when alarmed, where it 

 submerges itself completely, the tip of the black nose being alone 

 visible. Grown older, it accompanies the mother on all its 

 excursions, swimming alongside of her, and being suckled in the 

 water, for which the arrangement of the teats is admirably 

 adapted, namely, along the side, indeed, almost on the back. 

 Finally, when arrived at days of discretion, in about three 

 months, it enters the Nutria world on its own account, pulling 

 up the " bunco " stalks, chewing the blanched ends, and forming 

 them into small piles or nests ; stealing out of the swamps at 

 night along regularly beaten tracks, to feed on the grass or other 

 plants on the dry ground, and facing all the dangers of droughts, 

 dogs, and skin-hunting native boys. 



As the droughts draw on, the Nutrias travel gradually away 

 from here, follo\ving the larger water courses to their mergence 

 into the more permanent swamps and lagunas ; but frequently a 

 large number will remain isolated in some particular swamp, their 

 runs through it in every direction being strictly defined, and 

 showing always a few more inches of water than in the surround- 

 ing fen. Then, and when they are driven to lurk among the 

 reeds and rushes (for most of these "canadas" never contain 

 more than five feet of water, and are dry, or nearly so, every 

 summer), they are easily found, and are killed in great numbers. 

 In the first case, the hunter looks for a slight bulging-up of the 

 " camalote," a thick floating duckweed or vegetable scum, clears it 

 gently away with the end of his stick, and gives the cause — Don 

 Nutria's head — a smart tap, which is always sufficient to kill him. 

 When there is no water at all, dogs are used to find and bring 

 them to bay, when club law is again the rule. On one occasion, 

 while beating up a favourite ornithological haunt, a swamp 

 some four or five acres in extent, I found two piles of their 

 carcases (skinned), amounting to at least three hundred in number. 

 The skins sell in the native stores for about 4s. per dozen, but at 

 the time when beaver skins were much in request for hats, they 

 were worth far more. Native peons could hardly be got during 

 the summer months, — they were all Nutria hunting. One 

 " pulpero " told me that he dated his rise in life from the summer 

 following the great flood of 1857, when he made about ^£300 clear 

 profit from his purchases of Nutria skins. They are quoted pretty 

 regularly in the produce market, generally following the sales of 



