300 The Naturalist in La Plata. 
bodies touch the earth. Often after he has thus 
slain them, he leaves their bodies untouched for the 
Polyborus and vulture to feast on, so great a delight 
does he take in destroying life. The vizcacha falls 
an easy victim to this subtle creature; and it is not 
to be wondered at that it becomes wild to excess, 
and rare in regions hunted over by such an enemy, 
even when all other conditions are favourable to its 
increase. But as soon as these wild regions are 
settled by man the pumas are exterminated, and the 
sole remaining foe of the vizcacha is the fox, com- 
paratively an insignificant one. 
The fox takes up his residence in a vizcachera, 
and succeeds, after some quarrelling (manifested in 
snarls, growls, and other subterranean warlike 
sounds), in ejecting the rightful owners of one of the 
burrows, which forthwith becomes his. Certainly 
the vizcachas are not much injured by being com- 
pelled to relinquish the use of one of their kennels for 
a season or permanently ; for, if the locality suits him, 
the fox remains with them always. Soon they grow 
accustomed to the unwelcome stranger ; he is quiet 
and unassuming in demeanour, and often in the 
evening sits on the mound in their company, until 
they regard him with the same indifference they do 
the burrowing owl. But in spring, when the young 
vizcachas are large enough to leave their cells, then 
the fox makes them his prey; and if it is a bitch 
fox, with a family of eight or nine young to provide 
for, she will grow so bold as to hunt her helpless 
quarry from hole to hole, and do battle with the old 
ones, and carry off the young in spite of them, so 
that all the young animals in the village are even- 
