230 CLASS MAMMALIA. 



object of the former seems to be to detect, and sometimes 

 almost maliciously to expose, the errors of the latter. The 

 errors of fact in Buffon are, perhaps, even more venial than 

 his errors of imagination. With all his originality, he was, 

 necessarily, from the extent of the subject before him, in 

 no small degree, however judicious, however discriminating, 

 a compiler, and we may be surprised rather at his general 

 accuracy than at his partial mis-statements. Zoology owes, 

 perhaps, more to him than to any man ; by his fascinating 

 work he rendered it an elegant and fashionable pursuit. Ray 

 and Linnaeus introduced it to the study ; Buffon fitted it for 

 the drawing-room. We should do better, therefore, to emu- 

 late the useful labours of these great men, than to criticise 

 their want of that information which time and the progress 

 of science have brought to light. 



These observations arise from the singular occurrence of 

 introducing a new genus, as yet unnamed, for the Viscache. 

 The animal intended, seems, by the description of D'Azara, 

 to possess qualities of an exclusive genus, though hereto- 

 fore treated as a hare. The Spanish zoologist was not 

 the first to describe this animal, but he has done it more 

 minutely than his predecessors : by these it has generally 

 been referred to the genus Lepus. Desmarest, in the 

 Encyclopedie Methodique, gives a marginal description of 

 it from D'Azara, as an appendix to the genus Dasyprocta, 

 or Agouti, which almost amounts, in fact, to moving it 

 from Lepus, and erecting it into a sub-genus of Dasyprocta, 

 or making it a genus intermediate between these two ; but 

 our business is rather with a description of the animal, 

 which must be from the text of D'Azara. 



The Viscache is about the same size as the Common 

 Hare ; but the tail is longer ; the head is thick, but swelled 

 or inflated, so that the eye appears sunk behind the jaw ; 

 the muzzle is acutely truncated, and hairy, with the nostrils 

 opening like a cleft; the ears are very long, large, and 



