SOCIABILIRY OF VIZCACHA 
those convenient houses modified for his benefit. Like 
the burrowing marmot of North America miscalled the 
prairie dog, the vizcacha harbours, apparently not 
unwillingly, a varied assortment of lodgers. They belong 
to many classes of the animal kingdom. A fox is the 
largest of these boarders, and though he and his vixen 
devour the young vizcachas, it is apparently regarded 
merely as “churchyard luck” by the parents, who 
exhibit no particular symptoms of animosity against 
vulpes. A weasel also lives almost entirely with the 
vizcachas, and in his sheer innocence of intent it is hard 
to believe. Quite harmless are two species of swallow 
which build their nests upon the sides of the burrows 
like sand martins at home. Various wasps and beetles 
complete the list. In North America the rattlesnake 
and the burrowing owl live with the prairie dog in har- 
mony. In South America the same owl visits the 
vizcacheras occasionally, and sits outside. This seems 
to be pure sociability on the owl’s part, for the bird 
does not apparently make any use of its acquaintance. 
The chief foes of the vizcachas are the jaguar and the 
puma ; the domestic dog they do not care about, but 
baffle his frantic attempts to catch them, by coolly, 
but with an exact appreciation of the moments necessary 
for the action, dive into their burrow just before his jaws 
close upon them. Mr. Hudson, who is the chief 
authority upon the habits of this sociable little rodent, 
doubts if there is “any other four-footed beast so 
loquacious or with a dialect so extensive”’ as is the 
vizcacha. Being a white-fleshed rodent who does not 
lead too active a life the meat of the vizcacha is good to 
eat. 
PORCUPINES 
66 
Such terms as “ the sharp quilled porpentyne ”’ and 
the “werely porpapyne,’ though bewildering in their 
127 
