The Desert Pampas. 1 7 



diurnal, and feed exclusively on insects, chiefly ants. 

 Wlierever the country becomes settled, these three 

 disappear, owing to the dulness of their senses, 

 especially that of sight, and to the diurnal habit, 

 which was an advantage to them, and enabled them 

 to survive when rapacious animals, which are 

 mostly nocturnal, were their only enemies. The 

 fourth, and most important, is the hairy armadillo, 

 with habits which are in strange contrast to those 

 of its perishing congeners, and which seem to mock 

 many hard-and-fast rules concerning animal life. 

 It is omnivorous, and will thrive on anything from 

 grass to flesh, found dead and in all stages of decay, 

 or captured by means of its own strategy. Further- 

 more', its habits change to suit its conditions : thus, 

 where nocturnal carnivores are its enemies, it is 

 diurnal; but where man appears as a chief perse- 

 cutor, it becomes nocturnal. It is much hunted for 

 its' flesh, dogs being trained for the purpose ; yet it 

 actually becomes more abundant as population 

 increases in any district ; and, if versatility in habits 

 or adaptiveness can be taken as a measure of intelli- 

 gence, this poor armadillo, a survival of the past, so 

 old on the earth as to have existed contempora- 

 neously with the giant glyptodon, is the superior of 

 the large-brained cats and canines. 



To finish with the mammalia, there are two 

 interesting opossums, both of the genus Didelphys, 

 but in habits as wide apart as cat from otter. One 

 of these marsupials appears so much at home on 

 the plains that I almost regret having said that the 

 vizcacha alone gives us the idea of being in its 

 habits the product of the pampas. This aninial — 



C 



