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Show 1894.] MAMMALS OF URUGUAY. 301 other. I asked my friend why he did not write to tbe ' Field' about it; to which he replied, " Because I didn't want to be considered a bigger liar than common." For m y part I can very well believe in the truth of the incident from what happened to me. I had shot with m y little collecting-gun, and only wounded, a Cormorant (Phalacrocorax brasiliensis), a bird measuring nearly 30 inches in total length, which had been sitting on a dead branch in the small river along which I was walking. The wounded bird flapped away down the laguna, which curved rather sharply and was clothed slightly with sarandi bushes on the banks. I therefore lost sight of the bird for a minute, and when I came in sight of it again I saw a great commotion going on in the water. Hurrying up I saw the smooth sleek head of an Otter, which had the Cormorant (still flapping its wings) in its mouth. As I ran up the Otter dived out of sight with the bird, and although I waited a long time I saw neither again. The whole thing happened rather quickly, and I was so astonished that I never thought of trying a shot with m y pistol, if, indeed, I should have had time to do so. I certainly expected the Otter to drop m y bird when I appeared on the scene, as I was then ignorant of the extent of " cheek " possessed by the South-American Otter. Just as they miscall the Coypu " Nutria," which means an otter, so in the camp they miscall the Otter " Lobo," which means sometimes a wolf, but on the South-American coast a seal or sea-lion, " Lobo de Mar" (Otaria); e. g. the Isla de los Lobos near Maldonado, Uruguay, where these animals (perhaps Otaria jubata) congregate. WHITE-CHESTED OTTER (Lutra brasiliensis). I only once caught a glimpse of the " Lobo de pecho bianco." While staying at an estancia on the north bank of the Rio Negro, several of us one blazing morning had ridden up on to a little cerro (one portion of which was whitened with the bones of a flock of sbeep cut off here by a flood a few years before) which commanded a view of a fine bending reach of this beautiful river. W e looked right down upon the varied greens of the monte bordering the river, and just in front of us upon a rapid, the sound of which came to us in waves borne by the hot breeze. A Black Cormorant was flapping heavily up stream, aud at the head of the rapid an Otter showed itself occasionally; the glance of the sun on his white chest showed that we were looking at one of those Otters, the fierceness of which is always alluded to by anyone who knows their habits at all. One man, very fond of swimming, told m e he should be afraid to bathe in a laguna which he knew to be inhabited by White-throated Otters with young. Another friend told m e how he and his companion were annoyed by Otters taking the fish from their set lines at night in the Rio Negro. Dr. Burmeister mentions this species being taken by chance on the Rio Uruguay on the Entre-Rios coast. |