Nevertheless, their displays are not so rare as we
might imagine. I have more than once detected species, with which I was,
or imagined myself to be, well acquainted, disporting themselves in a
manner that took me completely by surprise. While out tinamou shooting
one day in autumn, near my own home in La Plata, I spied a troop of
about a dozen weasels racing madly about over a vizcacha village--the
mound and group of pit-like burrows inhabited by a community of
vizcachas. These weasels were of the large common species, Galictis
barbara, about the size of a cat; and were engaged in a pastime
resembling a complicated dance, and so absorbed were they on that
occasion that they took no notice of me when I walked up to within nine
or ten yards of them, and stood still to watch the performance. They
were all swiftly racing about and leaping over the pits, always doubling
quickly back when the limit of the mound was reached, and although
apparently carried away with excitement, and crossing each other's
tracks at all angles, and this so rapidly and with so many changes of
direction that I became confused when trying to keep any one animal in
view, they never collided nor even came near enough to touch one
another. The whole performance resembled, on a greatly magnified scale
and without its beautiful smoothness and lightning swiftness, the
fantastic dance of small black water-beetles, frequently seen on the
surface of a pool or stream, during which the insects glide about in a
limited area with such celerity as to appear like black curving lines
traced by flying invisible pens; and as the lines everywhere cross and
intersect, they form an intricate pattern on the surface, After watching
the weasel dance for some minutes, I stepped up to the mound, whereupon
the animals became alarmed and rushed pell-mell into the burrows, but
only to reappear in a few seconds, thrusting up their long ebony-black
necks and flat grey-capped heads, snarling chattering at me, glaring
with fierce, beady eyes.
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