Should a gun be fired off several times, their cries
become less each time; and after the third or fourth time it produces no
effect. They have a peculiar, sharp, sudden, "far-darting" alarm-note
when a dog is spied, that is repeated by all that hear it, and produces
an instantaneous panic, sending every vizcacha flying to his burrow.
But though they manifest such a terror of dogs when out feeding at night
(for the slowest dog can overtake them), in the evening, when sitting
upon their mounds, they treat them with tantalizing contempt. If the dog
is a novice, the instant he spies the animal he rushes violently at it;
the vizcacha waits the charge with imperturbable calmness till his enemy
is within one or two yards, and then disappears into the burrow. After
having been foiled in this way many times, the dog resorts to stratagem:
he crouches down as if transformed for the nonce into a Felis, and
steals on with wonderfully slow and cautious steps, his hair bristling,
tail hanging, and eyes intent on his motionless intended victim; when
within seven or eight yards he makes a sudden rush, but invariably with
the same dis-appointing result. The persistence with which the dogs go
on hoping against hope in this unprofitable game, in which they always
act the stupid part, is highly amusing, and is very interesting to the
naturalist; for it shows that the native dogs on .the pampas have
developed a very remarkable instinct, and one that might be perfected by
artificial selection; but dogs with the hunting habits of the cat would,
I think, be of little use to man.
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