THE CHINCHILLA. 
3 
a small folio, in the year 1622, and reprinted, three 
years afterwards, in the fourth part of Purchas his 
Pilgrims." This hardy and adventurous seaman ap- 
pears, notwithstanding the somewhat contemptuous 
manner in which he speaks of the " princes and 
nobles" that "laie waite" for these skins, to have been 
much of the same opinion with regard to their superior 
quality and comfort. It is worthy of remark that he 
treats them not as wool, in which light Acosta seems 
to have regarded them, but as fur. " Amongst others," 
he says, (showing, by the by, as little respect for the 
niceties of grammar as the translator above quoted), 
"they have little beastes, like unto a squirrell, but 
that hee is grey, his skinne is the most delicate soft 
and curious furre that I have scene, and of much 
estimation, (as is reason,) in the Peru ; few of them 
come into Spaine, because difficult to be come by, for 
that the princes and nobles laie waite for them, they 
call this beast Chinchilla, and of them they have great 
abundance." 
In the foregoing quotations the Chinchilla is only 
said to be like a Squirrel : later writers appear to 
have confounded them. Thus when Alonso de Ovalle, 
another Spaniard, whose " Historical Relation of the 
Kingdom of Chili" was published at Rome in 1646, 
says that " the Squirrels [Ardas] which are found only 
in the Valley of Guasco, are ash-coloured, and their 
skins are in great esteem for the fineness and softness 
of the fur," he evidently means the Chinchilla ; for no 
species of Squirrel, whose fur is of any value, is found 
in that country. The same may also be said of an 
anonymous Italian author, (considered by some biblio- 
graphers, but we believe erroneously, to have been the 
Abbe Vidaure), who published at Bologna in 1776 a 
Compendium of the Geographical, Natural, and Civil 
b2 
