310 The Naturalist in La Plata. 



liave found it very good, and while engaged writing 

 this chapter have dined on it served up in various 

 ways. The young animals are rather insipid, the 

 old males tough, but the mature females are excel- 

 lent — the flesh being tender, exceedingly white, 

 fragrant to the nostrils, and with a very delicate 

 game-flavour. 



Within the last ten years so much new land has 

 been brought under cultivation that farmers have 

 been compelled to destroy incredible numbers of 

 vizcachas : many large " estancieros " (cattle- 

 breeders) have followed the example set by the 

 grain-growers, and have had them exterminated 

 on their estates. Now all that Azara, on hearsay, 

 tells about the vizcachas perishing in their burrows, 

 when these are covered up, but that they can sup- 

 port life thus buried for a period of ten or twelve 

 days, and that during that time animals will 

 come from other villages and disinter them, unless 

 frightened off with dogs, is strictly true. Country 

 workmen are so well acquainted with these facts 

 that they frequently undertake to destroy all the 

 vizcacheras on an estate for so paltry a sum as ten- 

 pence in English money for each one, and yet will 

 make double the money at this work than they can 

 at any other. By day they partly open up, then 

 cover up the burrows with a great quantity of 

 earth, and by night go round with dogs to drive 

 away the vizcachas from the still open burrows 

 that come to dig out their buried friends. After all 

 the vizcacheras on an estate have been thus served, 

 the workmen are usually bound by previous agree- 

 ment to keep guard over them for a space of eight 



