MAMMALIA. 



91 



very white ; it is, however, rather tasteless and dry. Full grown animals weigh 

 between twenty and twenty-six pounds. ' — D. 



Hydrochxerus Capybara. 



Hydrochoerus Capybara, Auct. 



" These animals are common wherever there are large rivers or lakes, over that 

 part of the South American Continent which lies between the Orinoco and the Plata, 

 a distance of nearly 1400 miles. They are not generally supposed to extend south 

 of the Plata ; but as there is a Laguna Carpincho (the latter being the provincial 

 name of the Capybara) high up the Salado, I presume they have sometimes been 

 seen there. Azara does not believe they ever frequent salt water ; but I shot one 

 in the Bay of Monte Video ; and several were seen by the officers of the Beagle 

 on the Island of Guritti, off Maldonado, where the water is very nearly as salt as 

 in the sea. The one I shot, at Monte Video, was an old female; it measured from 

 tip of snout to end of stump-like tail, 3 feet 8| inches, and in girth 3 feet 2 inches. 

 She weighed 98 pounds. I opened the stomachs of a couple, which I killed near 

 a lake at Maldonado, and found them distended with a thin yellowish-green fluid, 

 in which not more than a trace of a vegetable fibre could be distinguished : it is in 

 accordance with this fact, that a part of the sesophagus is so narrow, as I am in- 

 formed by Mr. Owen, that scarcely anything larger than a crow-quill can be pas- 

 sed down it. The shape of the dung of these animals is a short straight cylinder, 

 rounded at the extremities ; when dried and burnt, it affords a pleasant smell like 

 that from cedar wood. These animals do not burrow holes, but live amongst the 

 thickets, or beds of rushes near rivers and lakes. At Maldonado they often may 

 be seen during the day, seated on the grassy plain in small groups of three and 

 four, at the distance of a few yards from the border of the lake, which they fre- 

 quent. I must refer the reader for a few more details respecting their habits, to 

 my Journal of Researches. — D." 



