castle] SOMETHING ABOUT GUINEA-PIGS 209 



pendent of the roughness or length of the coat. Compare ihe 

 figures of English, Angora, and Peruvian varieties. 



As regards their habits guinea-pigs are native in a temperate 

 climate where freezing is unusual and green vegetation can be 

 secured at all seasons of the year. They thrive best upon a diet 

 such as their native country affords. They are exclusively vege- 

 tarians and will eat a variety of vegetable food. Grass is per- 

 haps better than anything else for them when available, but when 

 not they do well on carrots, lettuce, celery leaves, beet tops and 

 the like. They are also very fond of grains of various sorts, 

 especially oats which may be given to them either with the hulls 

 on as to horses, or in the familiar form of rolled oats. When 

 they are kept upon a dry diet for the most part (but they should 

 never be kept exclusively upon dry diet) they should also be 

 supplied with water. Guinea-pigs will endure a considerable 

 amount of cold but should in general be kept in a place where 

 freezing does not occur and if they are kept in a basement or 

 other room that becomes quite cold at night they should be sup- 

 plied with an inverted box having a hole cut in one side, which 

 will serve them as a house and which will be sufficiently heated 

 by their own bodies if they are kept as they should be under such 

 circumstance?, in families of half a dozen or so. Each family 

 should obtain not more than one adult male, otherwise there will 

 be serious domestic difficulties liable to result in bad bites or 

 even in death. The females, however, will live peaceably sev- 

 eral in a family in which respect they are said to differ somewhat 

 from man. The young are born in a well developed condition 

 with eyes open and fully clothed with fur so that they are able 

 at once to begin independent feeding. Within ten days or two 

 weeks, if they have grown properly, the young may be weaned 

 and within another two months another litter of young may be 

 expected from the same mother. The young are born usually 

 in litters of two or three and they grow rapidly, if well fed. at- 

 taining a condition of maturity (though not of full growth) in 

 from three to five months. 



To the medical man and the public health officer the guinea- 

 pig is not a pet but a domesticated animal of the greatest value 

 in the study of diseases and how to prevent them. The guinea- 

 pig has in this way been of incalculable value to science, which 

 fact will explain the seemingly extravagant estimate placed upon 

 it by my friend the surgeon. Strangely enough the guinea-pig, 

 unlike ourselves as it seems to be, reacts in a very similar wax- 

 to various organisms which produce disease in man. Tlrs is 



