38 Idle Days in Patagonia. 
picked up are at present, I believe, in the famous 
Pitt-Rivers collection. But I was over-careful. 
The finest of my treasures, the most curious and 
beautiful objects I could select, packed apart for 
greater safety, were unfortunately lost in transit—a 
severe blow, which hurt me more than the wound 
I had received on the knee. 
At some of the villages I examined, within a few 
yards of the ground where the huts had stood, I 
found deposits of bones of animals that had been 
used as food. These were of the rhea, huanaco, 
deer, peccary, dolichotis or Patagonian hare, arma- 
dillo, coypu, vizcacha, with others of smaller mam- 
mals and birds. Most numerous among them were 
the bores of the small cavy (Cavia australis), a 
form of the guinea-pig; and of the tuco-tuco 
(Ctenomys magellanica), a small rodent with the 
habits of the mole. 
A most interesting fact was that the arrow- 
heads I picked up in different villages were of 
two widely different kinds—the large and rudely 
fashioned, resembling the Paleolithic arrow-heads 
of Europe, and the highly-finished, or Neolithic, 
arrow-heads of various forms and sizes, but in 
most specimens an inch and a half to two inches 
long. Here there were the remains of the two 
great periods of the Stone Age, the last of which 
continued down till the discovery and colonization 
of the country by Europeans. The weapons and 
other objects of the latter period were the most 
abundant, and occurred in the valley : the ruder 
