AGOUTI. 
44 This animal," says Buffon, " is about 
the size of a Hare; and has been regarded, 
by most systematic writers, as a species of 
Rabbit, or large Rat. These animals, how- 
ever, it resembles in some minute characters 
only; but, in natural dispositions, it differs 
essentially from them both. It has the rude^ 
ness of hair, the grunting, and likewise the 
voracious appetite, of the Hog : and, when 
fully glutted, it conceals, like the Fox, the 
remainder of it's food, in different places. 
The Agouti delights in cutting and gnawing 
every thing it meets with. When irritated, 
the hair of it's back rises, and it strikes the 
ground forcibly with it's hind .feet. It's bite 
is cruel. In Souchu de Rennefort's Histoire 
des Indes, it is said, that this animal is very 
mischievous; and that the Capuchins of 
OHnda, in Brasil, having brought up a young 
one, and even used the precaution of extract- 
ing his teeth, found him continue to extend his 
devastations as far as his chain permitted. It 
diss not a hole, like the Rabbit; nor sirs on 
the ground, like the Hare: but, generally, 
lives in the hollows of decayed trees. Fruits, 
Potatoes, and Manioc, are the common food of 
those 
