62 MALDONADO. 



noise of a gun : one day I fired ten times from 

 within eighty yards at one animal; and it was much 

 more startled at the ball cutting up the gi'ound than 

 at the report of the rifle. My powder being ex- 

 hausted, 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 an- 

 imal is the overpoweringly 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 caiTied 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 odom*. This 

 appears an astonishing instance of the permanence 

 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 lee- 

 ward 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 eaith, 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 



* In South America I collected altogether twenty-seven species 



