372 



TROPICAL AMERICA AND ITS ANIMALS 



Agutis. 



Paca. 





|&* 



which are sometimes as much as a yard in diameter, and communicate by similar 

 galleries with each other. 



Another family of rodents, peculiar to the typical American area, 

 comprises a number of short-tailed species with high-arched backs, 

 known as agutis. Ranging from Paraguay through the greater part of South 

 and Central America, agutis are represented by one species in the West Indies. 

 They are distinguished by having live toes on the fore-feet and three toes to the 

 hind-feet, as well as by their coarse hair, which is somewhat longer on the hind- 

 parts than elsewhere. The common aguti (Dasyprocta aguti), which ranges over 

 Guiana, Brazil, and northern Peru, is about 19 inches long, and olive-brown in 

 colour, with a yellow stripe on the back, and bright orange hind-parts. 



The paca (Ccelogenys paca), a heavily built rodent about 2 feet 

 lone, with tive-toed feet and bare soles, a wart-like stump of a tail, 



and a broad head 

 with a blunt nose, 

 is a member of the 

 same family. In 

 colour it differs 

 from the agutis by 

 the presence of 

 from three to five 

 rows of whitish 

 spots along the 

 sides of the reddish 

 brown body. Pacas 

 inhabit the greater 

 part of South 

 America down to 

 Paraguay, alt hough 

 unknown west of 

 the Andes, and they 

 are also found in 

 Tobago and Trini- 

 dad. On the high- 

 lands of Ecuador 

 the common paca 

 is replaced by Taczanowski's paca (C. taczanowskii), whose burrows, unlike those, 

 of the common paca, have two entrances. Branick's paca (Dinomys branicki), 

 which probably inhabits some part of upper Amazonia, represents a distinct 

 type, and has a remarkable history, having for many years been known only by 

 a single specimen taken in a Peruvian courtyard. 



The cavies, another family restricted to the South American 

 Cavies. 



region, comprise very short-tailed or tailless rodents, with four toes 



on the fore-feet and only three on the hind-feet, all of which are provided with hoof- 

 like claws. In the typical or true cavies the tail is absent, the body short, the 

 ears small, and, except in the domesticated guinea-pig, the colour quite uniform. 



VISCACHA. 



