The Desert Pampas. ia 
o 
What a blessed thing it would be for poor rabbit- 
worried Australia if a similar plague should visit 
that country, and fall on the right animal! On 
the other hand, what a calamity if the infection, 
wide-spread, incurable, and swift as the wind in its 
course, should attack the too-numerous sheep ! 
And who knows what mysterious, unheard-of retri- 
butions that revengeful deity Nature may not be 
meditating in her secret heart for the loss of her 
wild four-footed children slain by settlers, and the 
spoiling of her ancient beautiful order ! 
A small pampa rodent worthy of notice is the 
Cavia australis, called cuz? in the vernacular from 
its voice : a timid, social, mouse-coloured little crea- 
ture, with a low gurgling language, like running 
babbling waters; in habits resembling its domes- 
tic pied relation the guinea pig. It loves to run on 
clean ground, and on the pampas makes little rat- 
roads all about its hiding-place, which little roads 
tell a story to the fox, and such like; therefore the 
little cavy’s habits, and the habits of all cavies, I 
fancy, are not so well suited to the humid grassy 
region as to other districts, with sterile ground to 
run and play upon, and thickets in which to hide. 
A more interesting animal is the Ctenomys 
magellanica, a little less than the rat in size, with 
a shorter tail, pale grey fur, and red incisors. It 
is called tuco-tuco from its voice, and oculto from its 
habits; for it is a dweller underground, and re- 
quires a loose, sandy soil in which, like the mole, it 
may swim beneath the surface. Consequently the 
pampa, with its heavy, moist mould, is not the 
tuco’s proper place; nevertheless, wherever there 
