CLASS I. MAMMALIA: ORDER 7. RODENTIA. 395 



In a state of nature the habitation of the Paca is in low humid forests, and in the neighbor- 

 hood of water. The animal digs a burrow like the rabbit, but much less deep; indeed, it is so 

 near the surface, that the foot of the pedestrian often breaks through, and, sinking into the tun- 

 nel, drives out the tenant. There are generally three issues to a burrow, and the apertures of these 

 the animal covers with dry leaves and branches. To take it alive, the hunter stops two of these 

 openings and digs into the third; but when the penetralia are reached, the hapless besieged 

 makes a most determined resistance, fighting the enemy with ferocity, and trying to bite. When 

 undisturbed, it often sits up and washes its head and whiskers with its two fore-paws, which it 

 licks and moistens with its saliva at each ablution, like a cat ; and with these fore-paws, as well 

 as with the hind ones, it often scratches itself and dresses its fur. Though heavy and corpulent, 

 it can run with a good deal of activity, and often takes lively jumps. It swims and dives with 

 great adroitness, and its cry resembles the grunting of a young pig. Its food consists of fruits 

 and tender plants, which it seeks in the night, hardly ever quitting its burrow in the day, the 

 strong light of which, as is the case with other nocturnal animals, being oppressive to its eye. The 

 planter often rues the visits made by these midnight foragers to his sugar-canes. The female is 

 said to bring forth at the rainy season, and to produce but a single young one, which stays a long 

 time with the mother. The Pacas are very cleanly creatures, never dropping their excrements 

 near their dwellings, but going to a considerable distance for that purpose. The flesh is stated to 

 be of good flavor, but as it is very fat and rich, it soon cloys; it is prepared for cooking by being 

 scalded like a sucking-pig. Its skin is of no value to the furrier; but its thickness might make 

 it available in the useful arts. 



Cuvier thinks that this animal might be made to form a very good acquisition in the depart- 

 ment of domestic economy. He had the opportunity of studying. the habits of one in the Garden 

 of Plants, and says that in captivity no creature can exhibit less intelligence. When offended, it 

 throws itself violently at the object which has displeased it, and then makes a grumbling, which 

 breaks out into a kind of barking; and when it is not eating it is sleeping. But it requires a soft 

 and well-made bed, and, to obtain this, it collects with its mouth hay, herbage, straw, any thing, 

 indeed, that suits its purpose, of which it makes a little heap, and then lies down in the center of 

 it. This bed it never defiles, but goes to the extremity of its cage the farthest removed from it, 

 and constantly resorts to the same spot for the same purpose. It feeds on vegetables, but does 

 not refuse meat. 



If the Paca is little favored on the side of intelligence, it appears on the other hand to be re- 

 compensed by a large share of instinct. Mr. Bennett, from his observation of one which lived for 

 some months in the Garden of the Zoological Society, in London, states that it is quiet and con- 

 tented in captivity. Buffon, who kept one for some time in his house, found it mild and familiar. 



THE AGOUTIS, OR DASYPROCTIEXS. 



Of this tribe there is a single genus, AGOUTI : the Dasyprocta of Uliger, and Chloromys of 

 < Javier. The most prominent zoological characters of the species are found in the nature and 

 conformation of the feet and toes. The toes are provided with powerful claws, and yet the animals 

 make no use of them in digging or burrowing; they are pretty long, and separate from one 

 another, enabling them to hold their food between their fore-paws, and in this manner to convey 

 it to their mouth. Like all other animals which are thus accustomed to use the fore-paws as 

 hands, they have a habit of sitting upright upon their hind-quarters to eat, and frequently also 

 assume the same position when they would look around them, or are surprised by any unusual 

 sound or occurrence. Their food is exclusively of a vegetable nature, and consists most commonly 

 of wild yams, potatoes, and other tuberous roots; in the islands of the different AVest India groups 

 •they are particularly destructive to the sugar-cane, of the roots of which they are extremely fond. 

 The planters employ every artifice for destroying them, so that at present they have become com- 

 batively rare in the sugar islands, though on the first settlement of the Antilles and Bahamas 

 hey are said to have swarmed in such countless multitudes as to have constituted the principal 

 article of food for the Indians. They were the largest quadrupeds indigenous to these islands 



