VIII HABITS OF THE GUAXACO I7? 



The guanacos readily take to the water : several times at 

 Port Valdes they were seen swimming from island to island. 

 Byron, in his voyage, says he saw them drinking salt water. 

 Some of our officers likewise saw a herd apparently drinking the 

 briny fluid from a salina near Cape Blanco. I imagine in 

 several parts of the country, if they do not drink salt water, they 

 drink none at all. In the middle of the day they frequently 

 roll in the dust, in saucer- shaped hollows. The males fight 

 together ; two one day passed quite close to me, squealing and 

 trying to bite each other ; and several were shot with their hides 

 deeply scored. Herds sometimes appear to set out on exploring 

 parties : at Bahia Blanca, where, within thirty miles of the coast, 

 these animals are extremely unfrequent, I one day saw the 

 tracks of thirty or forty, which had come in a direct line to a 

 muddy salt-water creek. They then must have perceived that 

 they were approaching the sea, for they had wheeled with the 

 regularity of cavalry, and had returned back in as straight a line 

 as they had advanced. The guanacos have one singular habit, 

 which is to me quite inexplicable ; namely, that on successive 

 days they drop their dung in the same defined heap. I saw 

 one of these heaps which was eight feet in diameter, and was 

 composed of a large quantity. This habit, according to M. A. 

 d'Orbigny, is common to all the species of the genus ; it is very 

 useful to the Peruvian Indians, who use the dung for fuel, and 

 are thus saved the trouble of collecting it. 



The guanacos appear to have favourite spots for lying down 

 to die. On the banks of the St. Cruz, in certain circumscribed 

 spaces, which were generally bushy and all near the river, the 

 ground was actually white with bones. On one such spot I 

 counted between ten and twenty heads. I particularly examined 

 the bones ; they did not appear, as some scattered ones which I 

 had seen, gnawed or broken, as if dragged together by beasts of 

 prey. The animals in most cases must have crawled, before 

 dying, beneath and amongst the bushes. Mr. Bynoe informs me 

 that during a former voyage he observed the same circumstance 

 on the banks of the Rio Gallegos. I do not at all understand 

 the reason of this, but I may observe, that the wounded guana- 

 cos at the St. Cruz invariably walked towards the river. At 

 St. Jago in the Cape de Verd Islands, I remember having seen 

 in a ravine a retired corner covered with bones of the goat ; we 



