832 MR. HUDSON ON THE HABITS OF THE VIZCACHA. [Nov. 19, 



their flesh. I have found it very good, and while engaged writing 

 this paper have dined on it served up in various ways. The young 

 animals are rather insipid, the old males tough, but the mature 

 females are excellent — the flesh being tender, exceedingly white, 

 fragrant to the nostrils, and with a very delicate game-flavour. It 

 is certainly infinitely superior to that of the Hairy Armadillo and the 

 Ostrich : yet of the flesh of these, loaded with strong-smelling and 

 rank-tasting yellow fat as it is, people in Buenos Ayres are im- 

 moderately fond. 



Within the last ten years so much new land has been brought 

 tinder cultivation that farmers have been compelled to destroy 

 incredible numbers of Vizcachas : many large " estancieros " (cattle- 

 breeders) have followed the example set by the grain-growers, and 

 have had them exterminated on their estates. Now all that Azara, 

 on hearsay, tells about the Vizcachas perishing in their burrows, 

 when these are covered up, but that they can support life thus 

 buried for a period of ten or twelve days, and that during that time 

 animals will come from other villages and disinter them, unless 

 frightened off with dogs, is strictly true. Country workmen are so 

 well acquainted with these facts that they frequently undertake to 

 destroy all the vizcacheras on an estate for so paltry a sum as ten- 

 pence in English money for each one, and yet will make double the 

 money at this work than they can at any other. By day they 

 partly open up, then cover up the burrows with a great quantity of 

 earth, and by night go round with dogs to drive away the Vizcachas 

 from the still open burrows that come to dig out their buried 

 friends. After all the vizcacheras on an estate have been thus 

 served, the workmen are usually bound by previous agreement to 

 keep guard over them for a space of eight or ten days before they 

 receive their hire ; for the animals covered up are then supposed to 

 be all dead. Some of these men I have talked with have assured 

 me that living Vizcachas have been found after fourteen days — a 

 proof of their great endurance. There is nothing strange, I think, 

 in the mere fact of the Vizcacha being unable to work his way out 

 when thus buried alive ; for, for all I know to the contrary, other 

 species may, when their burrows are well covered up, perish in the 

 same manner ; but it certainly is remarkable that other Vizcachas 

 should come from a distance to dig out those that are buried alive. 

 In this good office they are exceedingly zealous ; and I have 

 frequently surprised them after sunrise, at a considerable distance 

 from their own burrows, diligently scratching at those that had been 

 covered up. The Vizcachas are fond of each other's society, and 

 live peaceably together : but their goodwill is not restricted to the 

 members of their own little community ; it extends to the whole 

 species, so that as soon as night comes many animals leave their own 

 and go to visit the adjacent villages. If one approaches a vizcachera 

 at night, usually some of the Vizcachas on it scamper off to distant 

 burrows : these are neighbours merely come to pay a friendly visit. 

 This intercourse is so frequent that little straight paths are formed 

 from one vizcachera to another. The extreme attachment between 



