832-3.1 THE CAPYBAKA OK WATER-HOG, 49 



Hie rifle. My powder being exhausted, I was obliged to get up 

 (to my shame as a sportsman be it spoken, though well able to 

 kill birds on the wing) and halloo till the deer ran away. 



The most curious fact with respect to this animal, is the over- 

 poweringly strong and offensive odour which proceeds from the 

 buck. It is quite indescribable : several times whilst skinning 

 the specimen which is now mounted at the Zoological Museum, 

 I was almost overcome by nausea. I tied up the skin in a silk 

 pocket-handkerchief, and so carried it home : this handkerchief, 

 after being well washed, I continually used, and it was of course 

 as repeatedly washed ; yet every time, for a space of one year 

 and seven months, when first unfolded, I distinctly perceived 

 the odour. This appears an astonishing instance of the perma- 

 nence of some matter, which nevertheless in its nature must be 

 most subtile and volatile. Frequently, when passing at the 

 distance of half a mile to leeward of a herd, I have perceived 

 the whole air tainted with the effluvium. I believe the smell 

 from the buck is most powerful at the period when its horns are 

 perfect, or free from the hairy skin. When in this state the 

 meat is, of course, quite uneatable ; but the Gauchos assert, that 

 if buried for some time in fresh earth, the taint is removed. I 

 have somewhere read that the islanders in the north of Scotland 

 treat the rank carcasses of the fish-eating birds in the same 

 manner. 



The order Rodentia is here very numerous in species : of 

 mice alone I obtained no less than eight kinds.* The largest 

 gnawing animal in the world, the Hydrochserus capybara (the 

 water-hog), is here also common. One which I shot at Monte 

 Video weighed ninety-eight pounds: its length, from the end of 

 the snout to the stump-like tail, was tnree feet two inches ; and 

 its girth three feet eight. These great Rodents occasionally 

 frequent the islands in the mouth of the Plata, where the 

 water is quite salt, but are far more abundant on the borders 



* In South America I collected altogether twenty-seven species of mice , 

 and thirteen more are known from the works of Azara and other authors. 

 Those collected by myself have been named and described by Mr. Water- 

 house at the meetings of the Zoological Society. I must be allowed to take 

 this opportunity of returning my cordial thanks to Mr. Waterhouse, and to 

 the other gentlemen attached to that Society, for their kind and most liberal 

 assistance on all occasions. 



