Sept. 1833. 



BIZCACHA. 



143 



where there is a wooden bridge over the river — a most un- 

 usual convenience in this country. We passed also Areco. 

 The plains appeared levels but were not so in fact ; for in 

 various places the horizon was distant. The estancias are 

 here wide apart; for there is little good pasture^ owing 

 to the land being covered by beds either of an acrid clover, 

 or of the great thistle. The latter, well known from the 

 animated description given by Sir F. Head, were at this time 

 of the year two-thirds grown ; in some parts they were as 

 high as the horse^s back, but in others they had not yet 

 sprung up, and the ground was bare and dusty as on a turn- 

 pike road. The clumps were of the most brilliant green, 

 and they made a pleasing miniature-likeness of broken forest 

 land. When the thistles are fully grown, the great beds are 

 impenetrable, except by a few tracks, as intricate as those 

 in a labyrinth. These are only known to the robbers, who 

 at this season inhabit them, and sally forth at night to rob, 

 and cut throats, with impunity. Upon asking at a house 

 whether robbers were numerous, I was answered, "The 

 thistles are not up yet — the meaning of which reply was 

 not at first very obvious. There is little interest in passing 

 over these tracts, for they are inhabited by few animals or 

 birds, excepting the bizcacha and its friend the little owl. 



The bizcacha* is well known to form a prominent feature 

 in the zoology of the Pampas. It is found as far south as 

 the Rio Negro, in lat. 41°, but not beyond. It cannot, like 

 the agouti, subsist on the gravelly and desert plains of Pata- 

 gonia, but prefers a clayey or sandy soil, Avhich produces a 

 different and more abundant vegetation. Near Mendoza, at 

 the foot of the Cordillera, it occurs in close neighbourhood 

 with the allied alpine species. It is a very curious circum- 

 stance in its geographical distribution, that it has never been 

 seen, fortunately for the inhabitants, in Banda Oriental, to 

 the eastward of the river Uruguay: yet in that province 



* The bizcacha {Calomys bizcacha) somewhat resembles a large rabbit, 

 but with bigger gnawing teeth and a long tail : it has, however, only three 

 toes behind, like the agouti. During the last three or four years, the 

 skins of these animals have been sent to England for the sake of the fur,. 



