300 The Naturalist in La Plata. 



bodies touch the earth. Often after he has thus 

 slain them, he leaves their bodies untouched for the 

 Polyborus and vulture to feast on, so great a delight 

 does he take in destroying life. The vizcacha falls 

 an easy victim to this subtle creature ; and it is not 

 to be wondered at that it becomes wild to excess, 

 and rare in regions hunted over by such an enemy, 

 even when all other conditions are favourable to its 

 increase. But as soon as these wild regions are 

 settled by man the pumas are exterminated, and the 

 sole remaining foe of the vizcacha is the fox, com- 

 paratively an insignificant one. 



The fox takes up his residence in a vizcachera, 

 and succeeds, after some quarrelling (manifested in 

 snarls, growls, and other subterranean warlike 

 sounds), in ejecting the rightful owners of one of the 

 burrows, which forthwith becomes his. Certainly 

 the vizcachas are not much injured by being com- 

 pelled to relinquish the use of one of their kennels for 

 a season or permanently ; for, if the locality suits him, 

 the fox remains with them always. Soon they grow 

 accustomed to the unwelcome stranger ; he is quiet 

 and unassuming in demeanour, and often in the 

 evening sits on the mound in their company, until 

 they regard him with the same indifference they do 

 the burrowing owl. But in spring, when the young 

 vizcachas are large enough to leave their cells, then 

 the fox makes them his prey ; and if it is a bitch 

 fox, with a family of eight or nine young to provide 

 for, she will grow so bold as to hunt her helpless 

 quarry from hole to hole, and do battle with the old 

 ones, and carry off the young in spite of them, so 

 that all the young animals in the village are even- 



