CHAPTER XXXIV 



BOLIVIAN OR ENGLISH CAVIES 



THESE, which are far more often called English, or even 

 merely Smooth Cavies, are, strange to say, the most 

 correctly called of the three main divisions of cavies. For 

 while it is doubtful whether the Peruvians came from 

 Peru, almost certain that the Abyssinians did not come 

 from Abyssinia or even any part of the African 

 Continent, there is every probability that this variety 

 did come from Bolivia, and possibly the Peruvians and 

 Abyssinians also. Bolivia is a country in South America, 

 bounded on the north and east by Brazil, and is quite 

 adjacent to the districts from which many naturalists 

 and travellers assert all the Cavy family originally 

 came. 



I mention the above for what it is worth, we know 

 that " a rose by any other name will smell as sweet," and 

 the little playmates of my childhood, then universally 

 known as Guinea Pigs, have not only acquired aristocratic 

 relations in the elegant long-coated Peruvians and the 

 fierce-looking, resetted Abyssinians, but have joined the 

 aristocratic clique by the fashionable practice of changing 



298 



