VIII 
HABITS OF THE GHANA CO 
177 
The guanacos readily take to the water : several times at 
Port Valdes they were seen swimming from island to island. 
Byron, in his voyage, says he saw them drinking salt water. 
Some of our officers likewise saw a herd apparently drinking the 
briny fluid from a salina near Cape Blanco. I imagine in 
several parts of the country, if they do not drink salt water, they 
drink none at all. In the middle of the day they frequently 
roll in the dust, in saucer-shaped hollows. The males fight 
together ; two one day passed quite close to me, squealing and 
trying to bite each other ; and several were shot with their hides 
deeply scored. Herds sometimes appear to set out on exploring 
parties : at Bahia Blanca, where, within thirty miles of the coast, 
these animals are extremely unfrequent, I one day saw the 
tracks of thirty or forty, which had come in a direct line to a 
muddy salt-water creek. They then must have perceived that 
they were approaching the sea, for they had wheeled with the 
regularity of cavalry, and had returned back in as straight a line 
as they had advanced. The guanacos have one singular habit, 
which is to me quite inexplicable ; namely, that on successive 
days they drop their dung in the same defined heap. I saw 
one of these heaps which was eight feet in diameter, and was 
composed of a large quantity. This habit, according to M. A. 
d’Orbigny, is common to all the species of the genus ; it is very 
useful to the Peruvian Indians, who use the dung for fuel, and 
are thus saved the trouble of collecting it. 
The guanacos appear to have favourite spots for lying down 
to die. On the banks of the St. Cruz, in certain circumscribed 
spaces, which were generally bushy and all near the river, the 
ground was actually white with bones. On one such spot I 
counted between ten and twenty heads. I particularly examined 
the bones ; they did not appear, as some scattered ones which I 
had seen, gnawed or broken, as if dragged together by beasts of 
prey. The animals in most cases must have crawled, before 
dying, beneath and amongst the bushes. Mr. Bynoe informs me 
that during a former voyage he observed the same circumstance 
on the banks of the Rio Gallegos. I do not at all understand 
the reason of this, but I may observe, that the wounded guana¬ 
cos at the St. Cruz invariably walked towards the river. At 
St. Jago in the Cape de Verd Islands, I remember having seen 
in a ravine a retired corner covered with bones of the goat; we 
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