lya ANIMAL CEMETERIES. [chap. vili. 



passed quite close to me, squealing and trying to bite each 

 other ; and several were shot with their hides deeply scored. 

 Herds sometimes appear to set out on exploring parties ; at 

 Bahia Blanca, where, within thirty miles of the coast, these 

 animals are extremely unfrequent, I one day saw the tracks 

 of thirty or forty, which had come in a direct line to a 

 inuddy salt-water creek. They then must have perceived 

 that they were approaching the sea, for they had wheeled 

 with the regularity of cavalry, and had returned back in as 

 straight a line as they had advanced. The guanacos 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 favourite spots for lying 

 down to die. On the banks of the St. Cruz, in certain 

 circumscribed spaces, which were generally 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 particularly 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, before 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 wounded guanacos 

 at the St. Cruz invariably walked towards the river. At 

 St. J ago in the Cape de Verd Islands, I remember having 

 seen in a ravine a retired corner 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 

 trifling circumstances, because in certain cases they might 

 explain the occurrence of a number of uninjured 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. 



One day the yawl was sent under the command of Mr. 

 Chaffers with three days' provisions to survey the upper 

 part 3f the harbour. In the morning we searched for some 



