The Naturalist in La Plata

alist in

p-chambered burrows, all with their pit-like entrances closely grouped together; and as the village endures for ever, or for an indefinite time, the earth constantly being brought up forms a mound thirty or forty feet in diameter; and this protects the habitation from floods on low or level ground. Again, he is not swift of foot, and all rapacious beasts are his enemies; he also loves to feed on tender succulent herbs and grasses, to seek for which he would have to go far afield among the giant grass, where his watchful foes are lying in wait

ert Pam

eir 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

rs 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 Pa

tter. It is aquatic, lives in holes in the banks, and where there are no banks it makes a platform nest among the rushes. Of an eve