HABITS OF THE GUANACO. 215 



regulai'ity of cavalry, and had returned back in as 

 straight a Une as they had advanced. The guana- 

 cos have one singular habit, which is to me quite 

 inexplicable ; namely, that on successive days they 

 drop their dung in the same defined heap. I saw 

 one of these heaps which was eight feet in diameter, 

 and was composed of a large quantity. This habit, 

 according to M. A. d'Orbigny, is common to all 

 the species of the genus : it is very useful to the 

 Peruvian Indians, who use the dung for fuel, and 

 are thus saved the trouble of collecting it. 



The guanacos appear to have lavourite spots for 

 lying down to die. On the banks of the St. Cruz, 

 in certain circumscribed spaces, which were gener- 

 ally bushy and all near the river, the ground was 

 actually white with bones. On one such spot I 

 counted between ten and twenty heads. I partic- 

 ularly examined the bones ; they did not appear as 

 some scattered ones which I had seen, gnawed or 

 broken, as if dragged together by beasts of prey. 

 The animals in most cases must have crawled, be- 

 fore dying, beneath and amongst the bushes. Mr, 

 Bynoe informs me that during a former voyage he 

 observed the same circumstance on the banks of 

 the Rio Gallegos. I do not at all understand the 

 reason of this, but I may observe, that the wound- 

 ed guanacos at the St. Cruz invariably walked to- 

 wards the river. At St. Jago, in the Cape de Verd 

 islands, I remember having seen in a ravine a re- 

 tired comer covered with bones of the goat ; we 

 at the time exclaimed that it was the burial-ground 

 of all the goats in the island. I mention these tri- 

 fling circumstances, because in certain cases they 

 might explain the occurrence of a number of un- 

 injured bones in a cave, or buried under alluvial 

 accumulations ; and likewise the cause why certain 

 animals are more commonly embedded than others 

 in sedimentary deposits. 



