1894.] MAMMALS or ITRUGTJAT. 315 



t> 



the only natural wood (composed of low thorny trees and big 

 willows), and the Comadreja preferring to live on the higher camp, 

 where it lies up in clefts and holes among the granite boulder 

 rocks ; among these a few low thorny bushes are found in some 

 cases. I have never seen a Comadreja in the moute or up any 

 native tree, but have no doubt they often climbed the trees at 

 the estancias, which Mr. Davie tells me they are well able to do. 

 Tet this animal has a very prehensile tail, naked and scaly. Having 

 hauled one out of a cleft by the tail, J. found that it twined the 

 latter tightly round my fingers, the muscular power being con- 

 siderable. They run up the boulder rocks with great agility. At 

 bay, whether in rocky holt or old ants'-nest, laid up in. a soft bed 

 of dead grass, or " drawn " and facing a dog \Adth arched back and 

 grinning teeth, they make a snarling, grunting growl and a hiss. 

 It is necessary to kill those taking up their quarters near houses, 

 but they are often very difficult to kill. I have hammered one with 

 a stick and thrown its lieavy body against a rock time after time, 

 and then, after carrying it by the tail for some distance, discovered 

 that it was still alive. Much of the difficulty arises from their 

 habit of shamming. Once I smoked out a female and two one- 

 third grown young ones. A young one came first and was appa- 

 rently laid out with a blow from my stick ; I had to run round the 

 rock after the next, and when I came back (in less than half a 

 minute) the first had come to life again and departed ! An old buck, 

 worried by a dog and finished off with a shot in the head from a 

 collecting-gun and left for dead, was found an hour or so after 

 partly recovered. 



A female was brought in on 30th October with ten young, naked, 

 pink, and blind ; head and body 2 inches, tail 1| inch long. Inside 

 the mother's pouch were 9 teats only, which calls to one's mind the 

 complaint of the eleventh little pig ! 



Thick-tailed Opossum {Didelphys crassicaudata). 



The Comadreja colorada, as this species is called, is rare in the part 

 of Soriano where I was living, only one having been killed there 

 during my stay so far as I know. It is said by the residents to 

 be excessively savage (" muy brava ") for so small an animal. 

 Eesponding to a suggestion of Mr. Davie, I inquired whether the 

 female had a pouch capable of carrying her youug, and one rather 

 sharp and observant puestero's boy declared that it had. Although 

 the adults are so savage, a lady of my acquaintance had a young 

 one, taken from the body of its dead mother in the camp south 

 of the Eio Negro in February, which was perfectly tame. It 

 unfortunately shared the fate of so many ladies' pets and was slain 

 by a large tom-cat belonging to a house at which she was staying 

 oil her way to the coast, a day or two before I went over there. 

 The fur of this animal is very beautiful. It is of a warm, light 

 chestnut, paler and yellower on the sides and lower parts. The 

 upper parts have a flush on them of what can only be described as 

 crimson. 



