1833.] HABITS OF THE GUANACO. 121 



says he saw them drinking salt water. Some of our officers likewise 

 saw a herd apparently drinking the briny fluid from a salina near Cape 

 Blanco. I imagine in several parts of the country, if they do not drink 

 salt water, they drink none at all. In the middle of the day they 

 frequently roll in the dust, in saucer-shaped hollows. The males fight 

 together ; two one day passed quite close to me, squealing and trying 

 to bite each other; and several were shot with their hides deeply 

 scored. Herds sometimes appear to set out on exploring parties : at 

 Bahia Blanca, where, within thirty miles of the coast, these animals are 

 extremely unfrequent, 1 one day saw the tracks of thirty or forty, which 

 had come in a direct line to a muddy salt-water creek. They then 

 must have perceived that they were approaching the sea, for they had 

 wheeled with the regularity of cavalry, and had returned back in as 

 straight a line as they had advanced. The guanacos have one singular 

 habit, which is to me quite inexplicable ; namely, that on successive 

 days they drop their dung in the same defined heap. I saw one of 

 these heaps which was eight feet in diameter, and was composed of a 

 large quantity. This habit, according to M. A. d'Orbigny, is common 

 to all the species of the genus ; it is very useful to the Peruvian Indians, 

 who use the dung for fuel, and are thus saved the trouble of collecting 

 it. 



The guanacos appear to have favourite spots for lying down to die. 

 On the banks of the St. Cruz, in certain circumscribed spaces, which 

 were generally bushy and all near the river, the ground was actually 

 white with bones. On one such spot I counted between ten and 

 twenty heads. I particularly examined the bones ; they did not appear, 

 as some scattered ones which I had seen, gnawed or broken, as if 

 dragged together by beasts of prey. The animals in most cases must 

 have crawled, before dying, beneath and amongst the bushes. Mr. 

 Bynoe informs me that during a former voyage he observed the same 

 circumstance on the banks of the Rio Gallegos. I do not at all under- 

 stand the reason of this, but I may observe, that the wounded guanacos 

 at the St. Cruz invariably walked towards the river. At St. Jago in the 

 Cape de Verd Islands, I remember having seen in a ravine a retired 

 corner covered with bones of the goat ; ws at the time exclaimed that 

 it was the burial-ground of all the goats in the island. I mention these 

 trifling circumstances, because in certain cases they might explain the 

 occurrence of a number of uninjured bones in a cave, or buried under 

 alluvial accumulations ; and likewise the cause why certain animals 

 are more commonly embedded than others in sedimentary deposits. 



One day the yawl was sent under the command of Mr. Chaffers with 

 three days' provisions to survey the upper part of the harbour. In the 

 morning we searched for some watering-places mentioned in an old 

 Spanish chart. We found one creek, at the head of which there was 

 a trickling rill (the first we had seen) of brackish water. Here the 

 tide compelled us to wait several hours ; and in the interval I walked 

 some miles into the interior. The plain as usual consisted of gravel, 

 mingled with soil resembling chalk in appearance, but very different 

 from it in nature. Ffpin the softness of these materials it was worn 



