1832-3.] THE CAPYBARA OR WATER-HOG. 49 
the rifle. My powder being exhausted, I was obliged to get up 
(to my shame as a sportsman be it spoken, though well able to 
kill birds on the wing) and halloo till the deer ran away. 
The most curious fact with respect to this animal, is the over- 
poweringly strong and offensive odour which proceeds from: the 
buck. It is quite indescribable: several times whilst skinning 
the specimen which is now mounted at the Zoological Museum, 
I was almost overcome by nausea. I tied up the skin in a silk 
pocket-handkerchief, and so carried it home: this handkerchief, 
after being well washed, I continually used, and it was of course 
as repeatedly washed; yet every time, for a space of one year 
and seven months, when first unfolded, I distinctly perceived 
the odour. This appears an astonishing instance of the perma- 
nence of some matter, which nevertheless in its nature must be 
most subtile and volatile. Frequently, when passing at the 
distance of half a mile to leeward of a herd, I have perceived 
the whole air tainted with the effluvium. I believe the smell 
from the buck is most powerful at the period when its horns are 
perfect, or free from the hairy skin. When in this state the 
meat is, of course, quite uneatable ; but the Gauchos assert, that 
if buried for some time in fresh earth, the taint is removed. I 
have somewhere read that the islanders in the north of Scotland 
treat the rank carcasses of the fish-eating birds in the same 
manner. 
The order Rodentia is here very numerous in species: of 
mice alone I obtained no less than eight kinds.* The largest 
gnawing animal in the world, the Hydrochzrus capybara (the 
water-hog), is here also common. One which I shot at Monte 
Video weighed ninety-eight pounds: its length, from the end of 
the snout to the stump-like tail, was tnree feet two inches; and 
its girth three feet eight. These great Rodents occasionally 
frequent the islands in the mouth of the Plata, where the 
water is quite salt, but are far more abundant on the. borders 
* Jn South America I collected altogether twenty-seven species of mice , 
and thirteen more are known from the works of Azara and other authors. 
Those collected by myself have been named and described by Mr. Water- 
house at the meetings of the Zoological Society. I must be allowed to take 
this opportunity of returning my cordial thanks to Mr. ‘Waterhouse, and to 
the other gentlemen attached to that Society, for their kind and most liberal 
assistance on all occasions. 
