Notes on some Small Rodents found in North America. 113 



awful in its intensity, such as I have never realized but in the 

 solitudes of an unsettled country. The sound of your own 

 breathing, the crack of a branch, a stone suddenly rattling 

 down the hill-side, the howl of the coyote, or the whoop of 

 the night owl, seems all intensified to an unnatural loudness. 

 I know of nothing more appalling to the lonely wanderer 

 camping by himself than this "jungle silence," that holds 

 supremacy through the weary hours of the night. 



This silence was suddenly broken, as was my reverie, by a 

 sharp ringing whistle ; it was so piercing and clear that I could 

 not believe it was produced by an animal. It had hardly 

 died away, when another whistler took it up, then a third, and 

 so on until at least a dozen had joined in the chorus. I stole 

 as carefully as I could in the direction from which the sounds 

 came, but as I neared the spot the whistle ceased, and it was 

 now far too dark to descry any object on the ground. So, in 

 doubt, and sorely puzzled to account for such an unusual sound, 

 and with a firm determination to unravel the mystery in the 

 morning, I returned to my camp. Could it be Indians ? No, 

 impossible, there were far too many, and the tone of each 

 whistle was precisely alike. I was equally sure it was not the 

 cry of the rock whistler {Actomys), that sound I knew too well. 

 What could it be ? 



As the grey light of the morning came peering into my 

 tent, I started off to investigate the secret of the mysterious 

 whistler; but all I could discover, after a long and diligent 

 search, was, that there were numerous runs and burrows ex- 

 cavated in the sandy banks of the river, but by what sort of 

 animal I could not for the life of me guess. Setting a steel 

 trap at the entrance to one of the holes, I strolled down to the 

 Indian village, thinking I should possibly be able to find out 

 from the Red-skins what it was that made such shrill sounds. 

 Partly by signs, and by using as much of their language as I 

 at that time knew, I endeavoured to make the old chief com- 

 prehend my queries. 



After attending to my frantic attempts to produce a ringing 

 whistle by placing my fingers in my mouth, and blowing through 

 them until my face was like an apoplectic coachman's, a smile 

 of intelligence lit up his swarthy visage ; then I set to violently 

 digging imaginary holes, and explaining that the sounds came 

 about twilight, he nodded his head, dived into the tent and 

 disappeared in the smoke, but shortly emerged again with a 

 rug or robe made from the skins of an animal that was quite 

 new to me. 



It was beautifully soft, glossy, brown. The skins were 

 about the size of a large rat's, and about twenty in number. 

 Here, then, was the dawn of a discovery. He called the animal 



