124 PATAGONIAN EXPEDITIONS: NARRATIVE. 



always alert and intent on detecting the first approach of danger, they hop 

 about from one position to another, or sit erect on their haunches and nib- 

 ble unceasingly at a fragment of plantain leaf, or other morsel of food held 

 conveniently in the fore paws. The favorite haunts of these little animals 

 are shallow burrows about the bases of the larger bushes, or beneath cer- 

 tain herbaceous plants like Bolax glebaria, that grow in broad, dense, caes- 

 pitose masses upon the surface of the ground. All about us, and indeed 

 at times from immediately beneath our feet, could be heard the deep, sub- 

 terranean drummings of the little tuco-tuco, Ctenomys niagellauica, as 

 engaged with commendable industry, he drove his little tunnel just beneath 

 the surface, ever onward in search of those nutritious roots and succulent 

 tubers upon which he feeds. These little fossorial rodents seemed espe- 

 cially active in the early morning and late afternoon and evening. During 

 these hours, in localities especially favorable to them, they would be con- 

 stantly heard, though a careful watch throughout our stay in Patagonia, 

 kept at frequent intervals in order to observe their habits above ground, 

 was only rewarded by a momentary glimpse, on one or two occasions, of 

 a solitary individual, as he appeared for an instant at the mouth of a bur- 

 row. On one occasion, however, while walking rapidly along, I came 

 suddenly upon one of these little animals in the grass at a distance of 

 several feet from the mouth of his burrow. The manner in which he ran 

 aimlessly about in search of his hole, with the nose close to the surface 

 of the ground, seemed to indicate, not only that he had lost his way and 

 become bewildered by the grass, which, to him, had all the appearance 

 of a great forest, but that he depended quite as much, if not more, upon 

 his sense of smell as that of sight, while endeavoring to regain the aban- 

 doned burrow. Hardly had he entered the latter when the frightened 

 condition under which he had been so evidently laboring while above 

 ground, suddenly and completely disappeared, and he stopped long enough 

 to send back a rapid volley of deep, guttural notes, uttered in defiance at 

 the intruder, who, far from having cherished any sinister designs against 

 the little creature, had only been delighted with this opportunity, brief 

 though it was, of observing him above ground. The entire attitude of 

 the little animal was such as to convince me that his surroundino^s while 

 above ground, aside from my presence, were distinctly uncongenial, and 

 that he was in every respect especially modified and adapted for a sub- 

 terranean life, a conclusion which I had previously reached upon observ- 



