48 MALDONADO. [fii.\r. HI. 



heads. When the female is swimming in the water, and has young 

 ones, they are said to sit on her back. These animals are easily 

 killed in numbers ; but their skins are of trifling value, and the 

 meat is very indifferent. On the islands in the Eio Parana they are 

 exceedingly abundant, and afford the ordinary prey to the Jaguar. 

 The Tucutuco (Ctenomys Brasiliensis) is a curious small animal, 

 which may be briefly described as a Gnawer, with the habits of a 

 mole. It is extremely numerous in some parts of the country, but 

 is difficult to be procured, and never, I believe, comes out of the 

 ground. It throws up at the mouth of its burrows hillocks of earth 

 like those of the mole, but smaller. Considerable tracts of country 

 are so completely undermined by these animals, that horses in 

 passing over, sink above their fetlocks. The tucutucos appear, to 

 a certain degree, to be gregarious : the man who procured the 

 specimens for me had caught six together, and he said this was a 

 common occurrence. They are nocturnal in their habits ; and their 

 principal food is the roots of plants, which are the object of their 

 extensive and superficial burrows. This animal is universally 

 known by a very peculiar noise which it makes when beneath the 

 ground. A person, the first time he hears it, is nmch surprised ; 

 for it is not easy to tell whence it conies, nor is it possible to guess 

 what kind of creature utters it. The noise consists in a short, but 

 not rough, nasal grunt, which is monotonously repeated about four 

 times in quick succession : * the name Tucutuco is given in imita- 

 tion of the sound. Where this animal is abundant, it may be heard 

 at all times of the day, and sometimes directly beneath one's feet. 

 When kept in a room, the tucutucos move both slowly and clumsily, 

 which appears owing to the outward action of their hind legs; and 

 they are quite incapable, from the socket of the thigh-bone not 

 having a certain ligament, of jumping even the smallest vertical 

 height. They are very stupid in making any attempt to escape ; 

 when angry or frightened they uttered the tucu-tuco. Of those I 

 kept alive several, even the first day, became quite tame, not 

 attempting to bite or to run away ; others were a little wilder. 



* At the E. Negro, in Northern Patagonia, there is an animal of the 

 same habits, and probably a closely allied species, but which I never saw. 

 Its noise is different from that of the Maklonado kind ; it is repeated only 

 twice instead of three or four times, and is more distinct and sonorous : 

 when heard from a distance it so closely resembles the sound made in 

 cutting down a small tree with an axe, that I have sometime? remained 

 in doubt concerning it. 



