402 AMAZONIA AND LA PLATA. 



cloth, bits of leather, old shoes, bleached bones, dry roots and biauches, or what- 

 ever other " inconsidered trifles" it can pick up on the surrounding pampa. 



Hence caravans find it convenient to encamp in the vicinity of the viscacheras, 

 where they have an abundance of fuel ready to hand for cooking purposes. During 

 the day these viscacheras may be recognised at a distance by the herbige, which 

 is cropped short at the entrance, but which grows in tall tufts on the surface of 

 the ground above the burrows. But at night the rider has to guard against the 

 risk of his mount stumbling and perhaps breaking a leg by falling through the 

 roof of some underground dwelling. The Indian horse, however, being accustomed 

 to nocturnal expeditions, keeps his head down, smelling the ground like a hound 

 on the scent, and his instinct thus enables him generally to avoid the danger. 



Between the Colorado and Rio Negro the most common animal is the 

 marra, or " Patagonian hare" {dolicliotin patagonica), which is met in groups of 

 twenties on either side of the tracks across the bush. In the cultivated parts of 

 the pampa game, instead of diminishing, as might have been expected, has greatly 

 increased, thanks to the cessation of the steppe fires, which formerly destroyed the 

 young and the lairs. 



The guanaco (huanaco), which in Patagon'a ranges over the stony wastes as 

 far as the seaboard, has been exterminated throughout a great part of the 

 Argentine foothills. It is now rarely met in the Rioja and Catamarca districts ; 

 but in the province of Jujuy both the guanaco and vicuûa are respected by the 

 Quichua natives, and here they may still be seen grazing in flocks of hundreds 

 by the wayside. In South Patagonia the Tehuel-che natives capture about 

 300,000 guanacos every year without appreciably reducing their numbers. In 

 the district between Lake Aro^entino and the Latorre Cordillera Roarers and Ibar 

 saw as many as 5,000, and they c ilculated that there must be about 1,200 000 in 

 the whole region. The wool is woven into ponchos and blankets ; and cloaks, 

 which command a high price on the Buenos Ayres market, are made of the skins 

 of young guanacos stitched together with ostrich sinews. 



Like the camel, its congener in the Old World, the guanaco is able to pass 

 days without drink, and when driven to it, can slake its thirst even with brackish 

 Wetter. The male animal, being of solitary habits and swift in flight, is difficult 

 to capture ; but the females associating in herds, and possessing less staying power, 

 fall easier victims to their pursuers. In South Patagonia, the guanaco, when 

 fatally wounded or in a moi-ibund state,' retires to some solitary bush or thicket to 

 die in peace. The ground in such places is often found strewn with thousands of 

 skeletons. This strange instinct, first noticed by Darwin and Fitzroy, has since 

 been fully confirmed by other observers. It is noteworthy that it is only at the 

 southern extremity of the continent that the guanacos have dying-places ; else- 

 where they do not appear to have developed the habit, in the explanation of which 

 the naturalist, Hudson, suggests that the guanaco, in withdrawing from the herd 

 to drop down and die in the ancient dying- ground, is in reality only seeking 

 an historically remembered place of refuge, and not of death. He mentions an 

 analogous impulse in the Argentine riding-horse, which will also come home, or 



