PREFACE. 



THE plan I have followed in this work has been 

 to sift and arrange the facts I have gathered 

 concerning the habits of the animals best known 

 to me, preserving those only, which, in my judg- 

 ment, appeared worth recording. In some in- 

 stances a variety of subjects have linked themselves 

 together in my mind, and have been grouped 

 under one heading ; consequently the scope of the 

 book is not indicated by the list of contents : this 

 want is, however, made good by an index at the 

 end. 



It is seldom an easy matter to give a suitable 

 name to a book of this description. I am con- 

 scious that the one I have made choice of displays 

 a lack of originality ; also, that this kind of title 

 has been used hitherto for works constructed more 

 or less on the plan of the famous Naturalist on the 

 Amazons. After I have made this apology the 

 reader, on his part, will readily admit that, in 

 treating of the Natural History of a district so 

 well known, and often described as the southern 

 portion of La Plata, which has a temperate climate, 

 and where nature is neither exuberant nor grand, 

 a personal narrative would have seemed super- 

 fluous. 



The greater portion of the matter contained in 



