FLESH-EATING MAMMALS 



17 



and devoured. In the early lumbering days upon the Madawaska 

 the skeletons of deer could always be seen in winter lying on the 

 ice at the foot of the Wolf Portage." 



Foxes differ in many ways from the other members of the Dog 

 section, hunting, for example, "on their own", and not in packs. 

 Another well-known peculiarity is the habit of living in burrows 

 which have either been excavated by the animals themselves or 

 else are the appropriated homes of other species, such, for example, 





Fig. 313. — Vizcacha {Lagostom-us trichodactyl-us) 



in this country, as the badger. Cases are also known where 

 foxes share the tenancy with the original proprietors, not always 

 to the advantage of the latter, as the following example will show. 

 The commonest mammal of the South American pampas is the 

 burrowing rodent called the Vizcacha [Lagostomus trichodactylus) 

 (%• Z^Z)^ which lives in large communities known as vizcacheras. 

 A kind of fox, the Aguarachay [Cants Asarcs), inhabits the same 

 regions, and his behaviour towards the Vizcacha is best described 

 by quoting the graphic account given by W. H. Hudson [The 

 Naturalist in La Plata): — "The fox takes up his residence in 

 a vizcachera, and succeeds, after some quarrelling (manifested in 

 snarls, growls, and other subterranean warlike sounds), in eject- 

 ing the rightful owners of one of the burrows, which forthwith 



VOL. II. 



34 



