408 EXTINCT AND VANISHING MAMMALS 



scattered bands to be found in the steeper parts of the Cordil- 

 lera and along the Argentine border, but any close estimate of 

 their numbers is difficult. 



On the pampas of southern Argentina and over most of 

 Patagonia the guanaco seems to be still common from the Rio 

 Colorado in about latitude 40 S., and is even said to have 

 increased within recent years. 



Darwin has given a brief account of the abundance and 

 habits of the guanaco as he saw it a century ago in the Santa 

 Cruz region of Patagonia. They go in small herds of from half 

 a dozen to thirty, but he mentions one herd of "at least five 

 hundred." He speaks of their taking readily to water and 

 swimming to islands near the mainland. They have a certain 

 curiosity when alone but in herds easily become bewildered and 

 stampeded, a fact of which the Indians take advantage in 

 killing them. Both Darwin and Prichard (1902a) mention 

 coming upon places where great numbers seem to have perished 

 and left bones bleaching on the ground. Prichard was told 

 that in the winter previous enormous numbers of guanacos had 

 sought Lake Argentine and perished there of starvation. "In 

 the severities of winter they seek drinking-places where there 

 are large masses of water likely to be unfrozen. The last few 

 winters " had been so severe that great havoc had been wrought 

 among the animals. Prichard crossed Patagonia from the Rio 

 Chubut southwesterly to the Andean foothills, and thence 

 proceeded southward, coming out at Punta Arenas on the 

 Straits of Magellan. Over most of this country guanacos 

 were common, and in regions where they were not much hunted 

 were not very shy. 



Apparently the main danger to which this species may be 

 exposed, apart from the decimating effect of severe winters, is 

 the extension of grazing by the cattle and sheep of the settlers, 

 and the exploitation of the guanacos for their hides and meat. 

 As to the former, a writer in an Argentine journal (La Chacra, 

 1936) states that in 1913 ranchers in Santa Cruz pleaded for 

 the destruction of the guanaco on the ground that it was a 

 detriment to sheep raising and a national plague. Wire fences 

 used to enclose ranges prove the ruin of many guanacos, 

 victims of cold and hunger. On the other hand, the animal 

 does not interfere with sheep raising in parts farther south that 

 are unsuitable for sheep. It is much persecuted for its hide 



