8o 



NATURE 



[March i6, 191 i 



specimens of puma. He records how this "poor- 

 spiriu-d Ciit " is frequently tamed and kept as a p« 

 until almost full-^'rown. One settler near I^k 

 Arjjfntine lived alone in a single-roomed hut through- 

 out the winter with two threc-quartcr-Krown pumas. 

 As to the Amerindian natives of this region, tl 

 Tchurlche, he describes them as a fine race, with lar;. 



UlG-GkUE SHOOTING JN PATAGONIA AND 

 NEWFOUNDLAND.' 



•* T N Pataffonia no one uses the word ' mile,' the 

 1 distances are so preat that all reckonmg is 

 counted in leagues." writes Mr. Prichard in his re- 

 markably interesting; studies of these desolate, extra- 

 tropical pampas of .South 

 America. He contrasts 

 this measurement with 

 what prevails in vast 

 Canada, where the land is 

 so good and so usable that 

 the distances are computed 

 by the acre. " In sterile 

 Patagonia, no farmer can 

 make a living on less than 

 fifteen square miles." In 

 this region he pursued the 

 wild guanaco, belonging, 

 as he does still, to the old 

 school, which thinks it 

 better sport to kill than to 

 photograph. He also shot 

 the guemal, or Patagonian 

 deer— rnriarns or Mazatna 

 bisulca. (The reviewer 

 wishes that some zoologist 

 of commanding physique 

 and authority would settle, 

 as with a hammer or an 

 axe, what is to be the uni- 

 versally accepted generic 

 name or names of this 

 trroup of American deer.) 

 We are probably still with- 

 out adequate and correct 

 information regarding tlv 

 species and varieties ot 



South American deer, and 



even the size to which some 

 of them attain and the 



fullest developed type of 

 antler. Mr. Prichard esti- 

 mates that the Chilian 

 (Patagonian) guemal stands 



from 36 to 38 inches at the 



shoulder and weighs about 



160 lbs. He states that th(> 



specimens of horns in the 



British Museum are poor. 



The antlers given in the 



painted illustrations seem 



slitjhtly more developed 



than those in the photo- 

 graphs of the specimens 



obtained by Mr. Prichard 



himself, thout^h these ar(> 



of distinct interest, and 



perhaps, as he says, much 



better than anything in 



the national collection. 

 The guemal, according 



to Mr. Prichard, does not 



range eastwards far from 



the foothills of the Andes ; 



it is practically absent 



from the fiat, grassy 



plains of Patagonia. 



Besides this deer and 



the guanaco, Mr. Prichard shot rheas, swans, geese, well-hewn features, their skin of a reddish-brown. 



ibis, condor, Magellan wolves, and saw several fine | But although they average six feet in stature, they 

 , ' I have notably deteriorated in phvsique, from their 

 If " Hunting Camps in Wood and Wilderness." By H. Hesketh Prichard. ' i t -^ .r -j?-^ __ _ii : „ j;„j «..«..,..,.v.<i..o A 



The Heads of Canadian and Norwegian Elk contrasted (the lower head is Scandinavian). From " Hunting Camps 



in Wood and Wilderness." 



With TV Foreword by F. C. Selous. Pp. xiv-h274. 

 mann, 1910.) Price 10s. net. 



NO. 2159, VOL. 86] 



(London : W. Heine- 



habit of riding on all occasions and everywhere. A 

 man will not walk a hundred yards, but catches his 



