Chap. Y. PACA AND CUTIA. 203 



local variety of that species. Both difiPer much from 

 our hare and rabbit, which belong to the same order of 

 animals, their fur being coarse and bristly, and their 

 ears short and broad. Their flesh is widely different in 

 taste from that of our English Rodents. The meat of 

 the Paca, in colour, grain, and flavour, resembles young- 

 pork ; it is much drier, however, and less palatable than 

 jDork. The skin is thick, and boils down to a jelly, when 

 it makes a capital soup with rice. Both animals live 

 exclusively in the forests, both dry and moist, being 

 found, perhaps, most abundantly in the ygapos and 

 islands. When these are flooded in the wet season, 

 they escape to the drier lands by swimming across the 

 intervening channels. At Murucupi I saw several semi- 

 domesticated individuals of both species, which had been 

 caught when young, and were suffered to run freely 

 about the houses. The Paca was not so familiar as 

 the Cutia, which generally makes use of a hole or a 

 box in a corner for a hiding-place, and comes out 

 readily to be fed by children. I once saw a tame Cutia 

 runnino' about the woods nibbling- the fruits fallen from 

 the Inaja palm-tree (Maximiliana regia), and when I 

 tried to catch it, instead of betaking itself to the 

 thicket, it ran off to the house of its owners, which 

 was about two hundred yards off. When feeding, this 

 species sometimes sits upright, and takes its food in 

 the fore paws like a squirrel. 



The Paca and the Cutia belong to a peculiar family 

 of the Rodent order which is confined to South America, 

 and which connects the Rodents to the Pachydermata, 

 the order to which the elephant, horse, and hog belong. 



