610 



ZOOLOGICAL SOCIETY BULLETIN 



SNOW LEOPARD, OR OUNCE. 



are exceedingly odd and interesting. The 

 Capybara, — the largest of all living members 

 of the Rodent Order, — looks like a tailless and 

 specially amiable species of swine. The Vis- 

 cacha we regard as one of our permanent resi- 

 dents ; but the Chinchilla is intermittent, be- 

 cause it is so nearly extinct in a wild state. 



The big Patagonian Cavy looks like an over- 

 grown Jack-Rabbit, and both it and the Gray 

 Cavy are exceedingly difficult to procure. The 

 Paca, Agouti and Prehensile-Tailed Porcu- 

 pine are much more common, and no large 

 vivarium need be long without them. Per- 

 haps the most interesting of all South Amer- 

 ica's odd mammals are the Edentates. This 

 group contains the marvelous Great Antcater, 

 the Tamandua, the Three-Toed Sloth, Hoff- 

 man's Sloth and the Six-Banded Armadillo, — 

 all of which, except the Great Anteater, we 

 usuallv exhibit continuously. The latter, how- 

 ever, is so rarely obtained, and lives in cap- 

 tivitv in the North for such short periods, that 

 frequently it is absent from even the best col- 

 lections. Of the few Marsupials of South 

 America, the Murine Opossum is the one 

 which most frequently reaches the North ; but 

 its representatives are so delicate they seldom 



live long. Occasionally, one of these small 

 creatures comes to us as a stowaway in a 

 bunch of bananas, and does not appear until 

 the hatches are taken oiif in New York. 



The Patagonian Guemal and the few repre- 

 sentatives of the White-Tailed Deer group 

 that are found in northern South America, 

 have not yet appeared in the Zoological Park. 



Owing to the well-nigh extermination of the 

 important mammalian species that once in- 

 habited Europe, it is not an easy matter to 

 bring together any considerable number of 

 European mammals. The acquisition of a 

 living specimen of the European Bison is 

 always a notable event. Our pair was three 

 years in becoming fully acclimatized in New 

 York. The Mouflon is a permanent resident, 

 but the Spanish Ibex, Chamois and Maral Deer 

 are all so rare that when a species is taken 

 out by death it is difficult to replace. The 

 Reindeer lives here as badly as the Caribou, 

 and it is useless to waste effort upon it. The 

 Red Deer and Fallow Deer are quite as much 

 at home in New York as the best of our 

 American deer, and breed persistently. The 



