THE AGUTIS AND PA CAS 



1349 



and other plants, as well as fallen fruits; their sharp incisor teeth enabling them to 

 perforate the shells of the hardest nuts. In cultivated districts they do much harm 

 to plantations of sugar cane and plantains. Of their reproduction in a wild state 

 but comparatively little is known. They breed, however, at least twice in the year, 

 generally once in May, before the commencement of the period of drought, and 

 again in October, at the setting in of the rainy season. In captivity, where these 

 animals not unfrequently breed, there are usually only one or two at a birth; but in 

 a wild state it is quite probable that the number may be greater. For a consider- 

 able portion of the year the two sexes remain apart; but at the pairing season each 

 male selects a female, which he follows with squeaks and grunts, and with whom 

 he remains until after the birth of their offspring. The female brings forth her 



THE COMMON AGUTI. 

 (Oue-fourth natural size.) 



young in a lair or nest carefully formed of leaves, roots, and hair, and attends them 

 sedulously for some weeks, preventing the male from having any access to them 

 until some days after birth. When first born the young closely resemble their par- 

 ents. If captured at a sufficiently early age, agutis can be readily tamed, and it 

 is not uncommon in South- American houses to find one or more of these animals 

 roaming at large. The nocturnal foes of the aguti are the ocelot and other species 

 of cats, and also the Brazilian wolf. They are much hunted by the natives for the 

 sake of their flesh. Bates writes that on the Amazon they are hunted with dogs; 

 the method being for one hunter to proceed in the early morning to beat the forest 

 in the neighborhood of a river, while his companion takes his station in a boat. On 

 being hard pressed by the dogs, the agutis at once make for the water, where they 

 are shot by the man in waiting. 



