OCR Text |
Show 314 MR. O. V. APLIN ON T H E [Mar. 20, to a buck, with a nice head, and two does, which had been feeding in a low green pajonale. They were then of a warm tawny, with large and conspicuous light-coloured stern-marks. The peculiar strong musky odour (rather like cat) was apparent after they had cleared out. This species has no " brow "-tine. The ordinary head of a full-grown buck possesses the " tray " and has the beam branched once, six points in all on the head. I have, however, known a case in which the tray branch of one antler had bifurcated and the head had seven points. This head was carried by one of the Santa Elena deer which (it is believed) died a natural death and was most likely very old. The head approached even more nearly than usual that form of the normal Rucervine type assumed by Schomburgk's Deer (Cervus schomburgki), omitting of course the brow-tine, which is not carried by the Guazus. The bifurcations of the hind branch of the beam in this specimen are much closer together than in most other examples I have examined (including one other from Santa Elena), which resemble the figure in Admiral Kennedy's ' Sporting Sketches in South America,' p. 38. The does, at all events in their youth, have a few whitish spots on each side of the back. At a pulperia near the south bank of the Rio Negro I saw a tame fawn, a lovely little creature. The other deer of Uruguay are the Red Deer or Ciervo (C.pa-ludosus), " el Ciervo de los pantanos " of Senor Bollo, now rare, found in the monte of the Rio Uruguay, and, as M r . C. J. F. Davie of Montevideo tells me, also about Olinar, and in the jungles of the Department of Salto; and the little Swamp Deer, or Guazu-vira, a single-pronged-horned deer of the brocket type, now also rare (probably Cervus simplicomis, Uliger)-vide ' Description Physique,' p. 466. Mr. T. W . Burgess told m e it used to be found on the north bank of tbe Rio Negro about the Rincon de las Palmas, and I believe it is also met with in the monte of the Rio Uruguay. AZARA'S OPOSSUM (Didelphys azarce). Azara's Opossum, or the " Comadreja" as it is always called, is common and very fond of visiting estancias at night to rob henroosts and pick up any flesh food lying about. Dogs often give the alarm at night, but it is not easy to distinguish an opossum among the rafters or the branches of a tree. I remember one moonlight night coming on one suddenly as it sat on a low roof close to the bouse, but it is needless to say he was not there when I returned with a pistol. Another night the dogs at the same place stuck one up in a shed roof, which was at last discovered and . potted by the light of a match. The Comadreja has a peculiar sour, sickening smell, emitted when it is irritated or frightened. The smell is not strong, but very pertinacious, and to some people it is more disgusting than that of a Skunk. The feet of the Comadreja are formed for climbing, and it runs on the ground in an awkward tip-toe fashion. Yet it lives in a nearly treeless country, the river monte in South Soriano being |