go PAMPAS. [CHAP. va. 



very awkwardly, and when running out of danger, from their elevated 

 tails and short front legs, much resemble great rats. Their flesh, when 

 cooked, is very white and good, but it is seldom used. 



The bizcacha has one very singular habit; namely, dragging every 

 hard object to the mouth of its burrow ; around each group of holes 

 many bones of cattle, stones, thistle-stalks, hard lumps of earth, dry 

 dung, etc., are collected into an irregular heap, which frequently 

 amounts to as much as a wheelbarrow would contain. I was credibly 

 informed that a gentleman, when riding on a dark night, dropped his 

 watch ; he returned in the morning, and by searching the neighbour- 

 hood of every bizcacha hole on the line of road, as he expected, he soon 

 found it. This habit of picking up whatever may be lying on the 

 ground anywhere near its habitation, must cost much trouble. For 

 what purpose it is done, I am quite unable to form even the most 

 remote conjecture : it cannot be for defence, because the rubbish 

 is chiefly placed above the mouth of the burrow, which enters the 

 ground at a very small inclination. No doubt there must exist some 

 good reason ; but the inhabitants of the country are quite ignorant of it. 

 The only fact which I know analogous to it, is the habit of that 

 extraordinary Australian bird, the Calodera maculata, which makes an 

 elegant vaulted passage of twigs for playing in, and which collects near 

 the spot, land and sea-shells, bones, and the feathers of birds, especially 

 brightly coloured ones. Mr. Gould, who has described these facts, in- 

 forms me, that the natives, when they lose any hard object, search 

 the playing passages, and he has known a tobacco-pipe thus recovered. 



The little owl (Athene cunicularia), which has been so often 

 mentioned, on the plains of Buenos Ayres exclusively inhabits the 

 holes of the bizcacha ; but in Banda Oriental it is its own workman. 

 During the open day, but more especially in the evening, these birds 

 may be seen in every direction standing frequently by pairs on the 

 hillock near their burrows. If disturbed they either enter the hole, or, 

 uttering a shrill harsh cry, move with a remarkably undulatory flight to 

 a short distance, and then turning round, steadily gaze at their pursuer. 

 Occasionally in the evening they may be heard hooting. I found in 

 the stomachs of two which I opened the remains of mice, and I one 

 day saw a small snake killed and carried away. It. is said that snakes 

 are their common prey during the daytime. I may here mention, as 

 showing on what various kinds of food owls subsist, that a species 

 killed among the islets of the Chonos Archipelago, had its stomach full 

 of good-sized crabs. In India* there is a fishing genus of owls, which 

 likewise catches crabs. 



In the evening we crossed the Rio Arrecife on a simple raft made of 

 barrels lashed together, and slept at the post-house on the other side. 

 I this day paid horse-hire for thirty-one leagues ; and although the sun 

 was glaring hot I was but little fatigued. When Captain Head talks 

 of riding fifty leagues a day, I do not imagine the distance is equal to 

 one hundred and fifty English miles. At all events, the thirty-one 

 leagues was only seventy-six miles in a straight line, and in an open 

 * Journal of Asiatic Soc., vol. v., p. 363. 



