32 ASPECTS OF TROPICAL NATURE 



that great care is taken not to chase any of these animals into 

 the circle. 



As soon as all the entrapped vicunas are killed, the chacu is 

 taken to pieces, and put up again ten or twelve miles further 

 off. The whole chase lasts a week, and the number of the 

 animals slaughtered frequently amounts to several hundreds. 

 During a chacu-chase in the Altos of Huayhuay, at which 

 Tschudi assisted, 122 vicunas were caught, and the produce of 

 their skins served for the building of a new altar in the village 

 church. 



In the times of the Incas, the Puna chases were conducted 

 on a much grander scale. Annually from 25,000 to 30,000 

 Indians assembled, who were obliged to drive all the wild 

 animals from a circuit of more than a hundred miles into an 

 enormous chacu. As the circle narrowed, the ranks of the 

 Indians were doubled and trebled, so that no animal could 

 escape. The pernicious quadrupeds, such as bears, cuguars, 

 and foxes, were all killed, but only a limited number of stags, 

 deer, vicuiias, and huanacus : for the provident Incas did not 

 lose sight of the wants of futurity, and were more economical 

 of the lives of animals than their brutal successors, the christian 

 Spaniards, were of the lives of men. * 



In spite of the persecutions to which they are subject, not 

 only from hunters but from the ravenous condor, who frequently 

 robs them of their young, the vicuiias do not seem to diminish, 

 and, particularly in the more remote Puna regions, they are often 

 seen roaming about in large numbers, — the inaccessible wilds to 

 which they are able to retreat amply securing them against 

 extermination. 



Besides these four remarkable Camelides, we find among the 

 animals peculiar to the Puna the stag-like Tarush {Gervus 

 antisiensis), whose horns consist but of two branches ; the timid 

 deer, who also descends . from the high mountain-plains into 

 the coast-valleys and the forest region ; the Viscachas and the 

 Chinchillas. 



The Peruvian Viscachas {Lagidiunfi peruanum and pallipes), 

 which must not be confounded with the Viscachas of the Pampas 

 (Lagostomus viscacha), live at an elevation of from 10,000 to 

 12,000 feet, between 33° and 18° S. lat., and resemble the 

 rabbit in form and colour, but have shorter ears and a lonsf 



