156 



CHAPTER OF VARIETIES. 



culty in preserving them from rats ; for though the doors of the hutches 

 were lined with tin, the rats would squeeze through an almost incre- 

 dibly small space, and I have frequently seen one feeding out of the 

 same trough with an old rabbit, though the young they would 

 destroy without ceremony. I had also a collection of the spotted cavy ; 

 and though placing but little faith in the notion that they Would pre- 

 vent the depredations of rats, I was willing to make the experiment, 

 and allowing some to run about in the " rabbitry," I placed the rest in 

 a hutch by themselves ; but what was my horror upon opening the 

 door, one morning, to find the whole collection of " pigs" weltering in 

 their gore ; a prey to their kinsmen, the rats*. I have had much 

 painful experience that so far from rats being afraid of guinea pigs, 

 they evince a particular partiality to them. 



The spotted cavy is remarkably cleanly in its person, spending much 

 time in smoothing its coat ; it produces generally two, or three, some- 

 times four at a litter, which run about as soon as born, and grow re- 

 markably fast. How this little animal came by the name of guinea pig 

 I cannot conceive, as I believe it was originally brought from Brazil. 

 There is no food of which rabbits and guinea pigs are so fond as the 

 leaves, stalks, and juicy pod of the maize, or Indian corn, and they 

 will touch no other food while a particle of this remains. 



Aurora borealis. — A splendid aurora was seen at this place on the 

 28th of December last, at about six o'clock in the afternoon, appear- 

 ing, I am told, more to the eastward than is usual with this phenome- 

 non ; it was followed within twenty-eight hours by the tremendous 

 south-westerly gales which prevailed on the last day of the year. As 

 I did not myself witness it, I am sorry to be unable to furnish a parti- 

 cular description of its appearance. 



E. Blyth. 



Tooting, Feb. 4th, 1834. 



The snipe (Scolopax gallinago, Linnaeus). — A short time since a 

 snipe was brought to me, slightly wounded in the pinion. It refused 

 at first all nourishment, and would probably have been starved, had I 

 not forced a few worms down its throat, and held its beak until it 

 swallowed them; it soon began to swallow worms if merely placed 



* It is possible that this accident might be caused by stoats, though I never saw 

 any in the place ; the bodies were not mangled, but a hole made in the head, through 

 which their enemies had extracted the nourishment. 



