SOUTH AMERICAN RODENTS. 93 



of the woods, and tracks the very pathway that has been 

 trodden by the travellers, yet there is no real danger. 

 The puma will creep rapidly towards the party, and in a 

 short time approach sufficiently near to make its fatal 

 spring. But if one of the travellers face sharply on the 

 crawling animal, and look him full in the face, the beast 

 is at once discomfited, and retires slowly, moving his head 

 from side to side, as if he were fain to shake off the spell 

 of the steady tranquil gaze to which he has never been 

 accustomed, and which fills him with an indefinable dread. 



The puma lies in wait for his prey among the leafy 

 boughs of the forest trees ; and when the capybara, the 

 peccary, or any smaller animal, passes underneath, he sud- 

 denly springs upon it with an aim which never fails and a 

 grasp which can never be shaken ofi*. 



It should be noted that the disposition of the puma 

 appears to vary in different localities : in Peru he displays 

 a considerable degree of audacity ; in Chili he is so timid 

 that he flies at the approach of a dog. 



The South American rodents are very numerous, as 

 might be expected in a region so abundantly supplied with 

 vegetation. The Agoutis flourish on the gTassy plains of 

 Patagonia, Buenos Ayres, and Paraguay, ranging even 

 into the Tropics, and as far as Guiana. They eat almost 

 every kind of vegetable food ; but as they show a marked 

 preference for the plants cultivated by man, — potatoes, 

 yams, sugar-canes, and the like, — the agriculturist regards 

 them with antipathy, and pursues them to the deatn. 

 They are nocturnal animals; very nimble in their move- 



