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Show 300 MR. O. Y. APLIN ON THE [Mar. 20, the ears were apart (these sloping outwards and being less upright, when pricked, than in the fox), was very marked. It was so unruly and savage that I gave up all hopes of bringing it home, as I was leaving the camp very shortly. The first night it managed to gnaw its way out of a new hutch just completed for the transport of m y tame Zorros, but it was captured in one of the buildings early in the morning, being encumbered with a strip of raw hide tether. The name Aguara has given rise to great confusion, and the identity of the species (probably more than one) is not yet settled. I am aware that the Aguara has been described by some writers as a large reddish beast, but here I only describe the animal (easily distinguished from the Zorro) well-known as the Aguara by the residents in the camp where I was living. Admiral Kennedy (Sporting Sketches in South America, p. 37) applies this name to the Maned Wolf, Canis jubatus, " a fine animal, with a bright ruddy coat, black mane and pads," saying that it was found in the Chaco (Northern Argentina). But this is not my animal. Mr. Hudson (' Naturalist in La Plata') distinguishes between the Aguara-guazu (C. jubatus) and the Aguara, writing that the former is the nearest ally of tbe latter, but that the latter is smaller and has no mane ; that it is like the Dingo in size, but slimmer, and with a sharper nose, and has a much brighter red colour. This description does not agree with my animal, however. Dr. Burmeister identifies the Aguara-guazii of Azara with C. jubatus. Sefior Don Luis Cincinato Bollo, in a little book published at Montevideo in 1891, on Mammals, containing "la descripcion de los animales indigenas de las Repiiblicas Oriental y Argentina," distinguishes between the " Aguard-chay'" (which he says lives in nearly the whole of South America, especially in the north of Argentina and in Paraguay and the Chaco) and the " Aguard-guazii,r intermediate between a wolf and a fox (and doubtless Canis jubatus), which lives in " el alto Uruguay," on the banks of the lagunas of Corrientes, and also in the Chaco, Paraguay, Mendoza, and San Juan. But he does not describe either, merely saying that the former commits ravages among the sugar-plantations and fowl-houses, and that the latter feeds on eggs and small animals. Neither does this Aguara-chay seem to be m y animal. Burnieister makes the Aguara-chay of Azara a synonym of C. azarce. RIVER PLATE OTTER (Lutra platensis). This Otter was fairly numerous in the rivers. The Otter in South America is not the shy animal that we are accustomed to here. It is indeed reported as " m u y bravo," and even as apt to resent an intrusion on its haunts when it has young. A friend, long resident in the country, and a great fisherman, told me that once when he had hooked and was playing a big fish, an Otter suddenly came at the fish before his face ; I forget whether it broke the line or wrenched the fish away, but it was one or the |
