THE LIVING WORLD. 
501 
damp forests, and where he can conveniently reach the water. He digs a bur¬ 
row, which has so thin a roof as to form a pitfall for the unwary traveller, 
whose feet crushing through it drive the unprepared host from house and 
home. These burrows generally have the entrances closed by doors of dry 
leaves and branches. The hunters who hope to catch their prey alive, stop up 
two of these exits and dig into the third. When the citadel is reached, the 
hapless animal fights the besiegers with teeth and claws, only to be captured 
at the last. Like the cat it washes its face and whiskers with its fore-paws, 
but unlike pussy it does not hate to enter the water, for it swims and dives 
with great skill. Its food consists of fruits and tender plants. It is nocturnal 
in its habits, for its eyes are not able to bear the full effulgence of the king 
of day. It has a sweet tooth, and sugar-cane plantations suffer from its love 
of good things. When it is not asleep it is eating, and when asleep it lies in 
a soft little bed which it spares no pains to make comfortable, even luxurious. 
In spite of its laziness it is cleanly and well-bred. Its flesh is prepared in 
the same way, and tastes like that of a suckling-pig. The female, at a birth, 
produces but one, which remains with her 
for a long time. The breeding-time falls 
in the rainy season. The paca is said to 
be possessed of small intelligence but 
favored with fine instincts. In captivity 
it is quiet and contented. 
The Agouti is a deer, bearing some 
slight resemblance to a pig. Its head 
and form are moose-like, its legs slender, 
its ears short, but open, its tail lacking, 
or represented by the merest stump. The 
Yellow-rump Agouti (. Dasyprocta 
aguti ) is quite abundant. The Agouti 
Acouchy ( Dasyprocta acouchy ) is distin¬ 
guished by quite a long tail. The Yel¬ 
low-rump Agouti is brown, which grows lighter in shade, and even approaches 
white on the breast and belly, and becomes yellow or almost golden upon 
the rump. The hair is long and, as the animal has no tail, it falls over the 
hind quarters like a carefully adjusted bed-spread or valance. It is nocturnal 
in its habits, and its motions are marked by grace and quickness. It can swim, 
but it cannot dive; it is sometimes called the South American rabbit, but 
really belongs to the Guinea or Guiana pigs. It has the family appetite, 
which is distinguished by voracity rather than delicacy. In eating it uses 
its front paws, after the fashion of the squirrel, and plays such havoc with 
the crops that the planter is always waging war against it. 
The Crested, or European Porcupine (. Hystrix cnstata ), is found m 
southern Europe, where it has come from northern and western Africa, it is 
about twenty-eight inches long, the tail about eight more. The muzzle is large 
and obtuse, sparingly clothed with small, dusky hairs, with scattered longer 
and coarser ones on the upper lip; the anterior and under parts and limbs 
with spines not more than two inches long, with which are mixed some coarse 
hairs; it has a crest of numerous very long bristles, extending from the crown 
to the back and curving backward; the hind parts of the body and tail are 
striped paca. 
