How marvellous a thing it seems that the two species of mammalians--the
beaver and the vizcacha--that most nearly simulate men's intelligent
actions in their social organizing instincts, and their habitations,
which are made to endure, should belong to an order so low down as the
Rodents! And in the case of the latter species, it adds to the marvel
when we find that the vizcacha, according to Water-house, is the lowest
of the order in its marsupial affinities.
The vizcacha is the most common rodent on the pampas, and the Rodent
order is represented by the largest number of species. The finest is the
so-called Patagonian hare--Dolichotis patagonica--a beautiful animal
twice as large as a hare, with ears shorter and more rounded, and legs
relatively much longer. The fur is grey and chestnut brown. It is
diurnal in its habits, lives in kennels, and is usually met with in
pairs, or small flocks. It is better suited to a sterile country like
Patagonia than to the grassy humid plain; nevertheless it was found
throughout the whole of the pampas; but in a country where the wisdom of
a Sir William Harcourt was never needed to slip the leash, this king of
the Rodentia is now nearly extinct.
A common rodent is the coypu--Myiopotamus coypu--yellowish in colour
with bright red incisors; a rat in shape, and as large as an otter. It
is aquatic, lives in holes in the banks, and where there are no banks it
makes a platform nest among the rushes.
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