WEASEL FAMILY. 
49 
the British Museum they are nearly white, with the exception of the muzzle, 
which is dark. Occasionally, individuals are met with in which the whole of the 
fur, except that on the muzzle, ears, and feet, is entirely white; one such example 
being shown in the upper figure of our illustration. The nose has a vertical groove 
at its extremity, the teeth are relatively large and protruding, and the aspect of the 
animal is ugly and forbidding. 
The range of the tayra is generally stated to extend from Mexico in the north 
to the Rio de la Plata in the south, but it also includes some of the more southerly 
portions of the Argentine pampas. In British Honduras tayras were observed 
by Moore hunting in companies of from fifteen to twenty, and although some 
writers have doubted the correctness of this statement, it is fully confirmed by 
Mr. Hudson in Argentina. Rengger states that the tayra lives both in open grass- 
clad country, and likewise in forest. Writing of this and the next species, Mr. 
Hudson says that, on the pampas of Argentina, “there are two quaint-looking 
weasels, intensely black in colour, and grey on the back and flat crown. One is a 
large bold animal (G. barbara ) that hunts in companies; and when these long¬ 
bodied creatures sit up erect, glaring with beady eyes, grinning and chattering at 
the passer-by, they look like little friars in black robes and grey cowls; but the 
expression on their round faces is malignant and bloodthirsty beyond anything in 
nature, and it would, perhaps, be more decent to liken them to devils rather than 
to humans.” 
Although largely nocturnal in its habits, the tayra will frequently hunt till 
midday, when it seeks its lair and reposes till evening. This lair is generally either 
the deserted burrow of an armadillo, or some hole in a tree. The food of the 
animal consists of such mammals as it is able to kill, such as agutis and other 
rodents, but it also eats birds and their eggs. In inhabited districts the tayra 
frequently raids on poultry-houses, among the inmates of which it commits much 
havoc. Honey it also readily eats. The nest, which is sometimes made in the 
cavities of rocks, instead of in a hollow tree or deserted burrow, is constructed 
with much care. In one nest, examined by Hensel, two young were found, which 
were then quite blind, and had much the appearance of young foxes. 
This ( G. vittata ) is a smaller animal than the tayra, and may 
be compared in size to a marten or an Indian mungoose. It is also 
readily distinguished by its relatively shorter tail, of which the length does not 
exceed half that of the head and body, and likewise by its coloration. The latter 
is of that peculiar type to which we have already referred, in which the under¬ 
parts are much darker than the upper. The snout, the under-surface of the neck, 
and the under-parts of the body are very dark brown, whereas the whole of the 
upper-surface, from the forehead nearly to the tip of the tail, is of a uniform bluish- 
grey tint, the individual hairs being ringed with black and white. From the 
forehead to the shoulder the grey and brown areas are divided by a lighter band 
with a yellowish tinge, while the tip of the tail and the ears are distinctly yellow. 
There is no groove on the nose. The grison is found over the greater part of South 
America, as well as in Central America and Mexico; and there is also Allemand’s 
grison (G. ollemandi), which is of larger size, but has the same general coloration, 
although presenting some approximation to the tayra. 
VOL. ii.— 4 
