THE BISCACHA. 159 



elevated tails and short front legs, much resemble 

 great rats. Their flesh, when cooked, is .very white 

 and good, but it is seldom used. 



The bizcacha has one very singular habit, name- 

 ly, dragging every hard object to the mouth of its 

 burrow : around each group of holes many bones 

 of cattle, stones, thistle-stalks, hard lumps of earth, 

 dry dung, &c., are collected into an iiTcgular heap, 

 which frequently amounts to as much as a wheel- 

 baiTOW would contain. I was credibly informed 

 that a gentleman, when riding on a dark night, 

 dropped his watch ; he returned in the morning, 

 and by searching the neighbourhood of every biz- 

 cacha hole on the line of road, as he expected, 

 he soon found it.' This habit of picking up what- 

 ever may be lying on the ground anywhere near 

 its habitation, must cost much trouble. For what 

 pui"pose it is done, I am quite unable to form even 

 the most remote conjecture : it cannot be for de- 

 fence, because the rubbish is chiefly placed above 

 the mouth of the burrow, which enters the ground 

 at a very small inclination. No doubt there must 

 exist some good reason, but the inhabitants of the 

 country are quite ignorant of it. The only fact 

 which I know analogous to it, is the habit of that 

 extraordinary Australian bird, the Calodera macu- 

 lata, which makes an elegant vaulted passage of 

 twigs for playing in, and which collects near the 

 spot land and sea shells, bones, and the feathers 

 of birds, especially brightly coloured ones. Mr. 

 Gould, who has described these facts, informs me, 

 that the natives, when they lose any hard object, 

 search the playing passages, and he has known a 

 tobacco-pipe thus recovered. 



The little owl (Athene cunicularia), which has 

 been so ofi;en mentioned, on the plains of Buenos 

 Ayres exclusively inhabits the holes of the bizcacha, 



