Capybara

“ In these waters the capybaras and small caymans paid no attention to one another, swimming and resting in close proximity. They both had the same enemy, the jaguar. The capybara is a game animal only in the sense that a hare or rabbit is. The flesh is good to eat, and its amphibious habits and queer nature and surroundings make it interesting. In some of the ponds the water had about gone, and the capybaras had become for the time being beasts of the marsh and the mud ”

“ The savages make ear ornaments of the front teeth of this rodent, and I have already stated that I was fortunate enough to get four of these from the Pacaguaras of the river Trés Irmãos. The capybara has the body of a pig, the hind quarters slightly humped and covered with long bristles; the feet are three hoofed; legs short and stumpy, but with plenty of flesh on them; the head is almost exactly the shape of a rat’s, with three upper and three lower teeth just like the incisors of a rat or rabbit. Its colour is a dark dun [107] all over. ”

“ He is in surroundings that offer little congeniality. The lady hippo and her young son are out of his class. The capybara not only is from South America, but is like a rat magnified some two hundred times. ”

“ When fully grown, the agouti is rather more than eighteen inches long, and in general color it is olive brown. But the hair of the hinder quarters, which is very much longer than that of the rest of the body, is golden brown, while the middle line of the lower part of the body is almost white.
The Capybara
Few people, on seeing a capybara for the first time, would take it to be a rodent. It looks much more like a wild pig, for it has a very heavily built body, which almost touches the ground as it waddles along, short, stiff, bristly hair, and great hoof-like feet. ”

“ If a jaguar comes near a herd of capybaras, they immediately run to the nearest water for the jaguar does not like to get its fur wet any better than the ordinary house cat. On more than one occasion, when a jaguar has been very close in persuit of a capybara, it has been fool enough to follow its prey into the water with the result that the capybara has made a deep dive, leaving its enemy on the surface, and then before the great cat could get to dry land it has had to reckon with a hungry alligator. ”

“ AFRICAN PORCUPINE.
The Capybara, (Hydrochaerus capybara) , is the largest of all gnawing animals, and the most remarkable rodent in our collection. In form and size it suggests a large, gray, coarse-haired pig. It is a water-loving animal, of the American tropics, and lives on the grassy banks of the delta of the Orinoco, and similar places farther south. It is one of the best divers of all land animals, and when attacked on land always plunges into the water and dives for about 100 feet before coming to the surface. It is strictly a vegetable feeder, and its flesh is very palatable food. ”

“ He moves along with a lounging gait, often resting as he goes; and his eyes, as he turns his head incuriously to this side or to that, are large and soft and lustrous; while his voice, when he takes the trouble to warn away any incautious peccary or indiscreet capybara, is rich and low in tone. ”

“ He is not a communicative beast, and never offers a remark to any human creature but Church, his keeper, and then it is by way of extracting something to eat. The remark is a sort of purring rattle—the rudimentary speech of an animal whose vocal organs have not been tuned. The redeeming feature in the capybara, in these days of hysteric fad, is his utter absence of "views" on any subject in the world. And he has no enthusiasms.
THE RUDIMENTARY CAPYBARA.
[Pg 603]
THE GIDDY MALAYAN.
The tapir is nothing but an ambitious pig—a pig trying to be an elephant. ”

“ The Rivers Moucuripe, Caruvelas, and Lucuru, breed abundance of Water-Hogs call’d Capybara, which have short Feet, Bristles and Ears, a thick Body and Head, with a bearded Snout, besides two Tusks, and twenty four lesser Teeth in each Jaw, but no Tail; they feed on Grass and Bushes in whole Herds on the Shore, and make a terrible noise; and though they cannot run fast, yet they dive and swim extraordinary quick. ”

“ The jaguar hunts the capybara at all times and it is lucky that the little creature has large families, or it would soon become extinct. Sometimes the capybaras choose to live near a small lake where there are no alligators and then they are safe for they are splendid swimmers, and can stay under water from eight to twelve minutes. They know a trick like the crocodile and the hippopotamus, and that is they can come to the surface and only put out their nostrils to breath, and then dive again. ”

“ Three species of deer are common. In the Chaco the tapir or anta (Tapir americanus) still finds a safe retreat, and the peccary (Dycotyles torquatus) ranges from Córdoba north to the Bolivian frontier. The capybara (Hydrochoerus capybara) is also numerous in this region. Of birds the number of species greatly exceeds that of the mammals, including the rhea of the pampas and condor of the Andes, and the tiny, brilliant-hued humming-birds of the tropical North. Vultures and hawks are well represented, but perhaps the most numerous of all are the parrots, of which there are six or seven species. ”

“ The Cavia capybara, called in the province of Caraccas “chiguire,” is an unfortunate animal; being pursued in the water by the crocodile, and on the plain by the tiger or jaguar. It runs so badly that we could often catch it with our hands. Its extremities are smoked for hams, but their taste is very disagreeable from the smell of musk; and on the Orinoco we willingly ate monkey hams in preference. The beautifully marked animals which have so disagreeable an odour are the Viverra mapurito, Viverra zorilla, and Viverra vittata.
[31] p. 16.—“The Guaranis, and the fan-palm, Mauritia.” ”

“ This parasite is clearly distinguished from the above-mentioned species by the very minute size of its blepharoplast. The cytoplasm contains granules, but not so numerous as in T. brucei. Its normal vertebrate host is probably the capybara, Hydrochcerus capybara, a large water mammal of South America belonging to the family Caviidae. Nothing positive is known about its transmitting agent; Stomoxys calcitrans and Stomoxys nebulosa have been blamed. T. equinum causes in horses a deadly disease known as "mal de caderas " in Brazil, Argentina, and Central South America. ”

“ The hunter's chest was torn by the jaguar's claws but he was not badly injured. It was
JAGUAR STALKING CAPYBARAS.
some hours before he reached his camp, so weak was he from loss of blood. The guides immediately went to bring in the jaguar's body, but they found it ruined, for the white ants were already at work. The claws and pads were were about the only parts worth saving. The Capybara is another creature that seems to be hunted day and night by its enemies. It looks like a water hog but still it is a rodent, and the largest of the family. ”

“ As it was, with the addition of a little brown bread we had remaining, we made a good meal, and slept like tops till daylight. One of us, you will understand, regularly kept watch on the river while the other searched for provisions, except when we wanted to catch another young capybara, when we had to assist each other. We captured the second in the same way we had the first, with our long wands and nooses; we also caught several birds after dark, roosting on the branches of the trees ”

“ Their common prey is the capybara, so that it is generally said, where capybaras are numerous there is little danger from the jaguar. Falconer states that near the southern side of the mouth of the Plata there are many jaguars, and that they chiefly live on fish; this account I have heard repeated. On the Parana they have killed many wood-cutters, and have even entered vessels at night. There is a man now living in the Bajada, who, coming up from below when it was dark, was seized on the deck ”

“ In the Chonos Archipelago these animals, instead of inhabiting fresh water, live exclusively in the bays and channels which extend between the innumerable small islets of that group. They make their burrows within the forest, a little way above the rocky beaches. I believe it is far from being a common occurrence, that the same species of any animal should haunt indifferently fresh water, and that of the open sea. We shall see that the Capybara is sometimes found on the islands near the mouth of the Plata ”

“ Dasyprocta (9 sp.) , the agouti, ranges from Mexico to Paraguay, one species inhabiting the small West Indian islands of St. Vincent, Lucia, and Grenada; Cælogenys (2 sp.) , the paca, is found from Guatemala to Paraguay, and a second species (somewhat doubtful) in Eastern Peru; Hydrochœrus (1 sp.) , the capybara inhabits the banks of rivers from Guayana to La Plata; Cavia (9 sp.) , the guinea-pigs, Brazil to the Straits of Magellan, and one species west of the Andes at Yça Peru; Kerodon (6 sp.) , Brazil and Peru to Magellan ”

“ At the distance of about thirty miles from Punta Alta, in a cliff of red earth, I found several fragments of bones, some of large size. Among them were the teeth of a gnawer, equalling in size and closely resembling those of the Capybara, whose habits have been described; and therefore, probably, an aquatic animal. There was also part of the head of a Ctenomys; the species being different from the Tucutuco, but with a close general resemblance. ”

“ We bought the maize from them by barter, giving them an axe, a machete, or cutlass, and some fish-hooks in exchange; and I also obtained a couple of sets of the capybara teeth that they use as ear ornaments, for they can hardly be called ear-rings, as they are stuck behind the ear by a small piece of wax. I presented the Capitan Mariano with an accordion, with which he seemed highly pleased, and they parted from us evidently very contented with our treatment of them. ”

“ All snakes, and especially the Anaconda, are good swimmers. The anaconda however does not often attack the capybara while it is swimming. The little creature is more expert in the water than it is on land, and only it's aquatic equal could hope to seize it. ”

“ It here, however, exclusively frequents salt water; which same circumstance has been mentioned as sometimes occurring with the great rodent, the Capybara. A small sea-otter is very numerous; this animal does not feed exclusively on fish, but, like the seals, draws a large supply from a small red crab, which swims in shoals near the surface of the water. Mr. Bynoe saw one in Tierra del Fuego eating a cuttle-fish; and at Low's Harbour, another was killed in the act of carrying to its hole a large volute shell. At one place I caught in a trap a singular little mouse (M. brachiotis) ”

“ I have somewhere read that the islanders in the north of Scotland treat the rank carcasses of the fish-eating birds in the same manner.
The order Rodentia is here very numerous in species: of mice alone I obtained no less than eight kinds. [4] The largest gnawing animal in the world, the Hydrochærus capybara (the water-hog) , is here also common. One which I shot at Monte Video weighed ninety-eight pounds: its length, from the end of the snout to the stump-like tail, was three feet two inches ”

“ He remarked that its webbed feet enable it to swim rapidly, and that when pursued it dives, and can remain nearly eight minutes under water; so that, if not taken unawares, it is able to escape most of its numerous foes. Among the most deadly of these is the jaguar, which preys largely on the poor tailless animal; but man is also its enemy, for its flesh is excellent, and is considered like that of the hog.
As it was important to secure a good supply of food, the capybara was forthwith cut up, and some of its flesh roasted. ”

“ When feeding, this species sometimes sits upright, and takes its food in the fore paws like a squirrel.
The Paca and the Cutía belong to a peculiar family of the Rodent order which is confined to South America, and which connects the Rodents to the Pachydermata, the order to which the elephant, horse, and hog belong. One of the principal points of distinction from other families is the strong, blunt form of the claws, which in one of the forms (the Capybara) are very broad, and approximate in shape to the hoofs of the Pachydermata. ”

“ The jaguar frequents the borders of the rivers and lagunes, and its common prey is the capybara. It fears the peccari. The night air is alive with bats of many species, the most prominent one being the Dysopes perotis, which measures two feet from tip to tip of the wings. If these Cheiropters are as impish as they look, and as blood-thirsty as some travelers report, it is singular that Bates and Waterton, though residing for years in the country, and ourselves, though sleeping for months unprotected, were unmolested. ”

“ They were only fairly good hunters and trailers, and when in thick forest Kermit with his compass could find his way better than they could. A few of them hunted the jaguar and also the cashada, the big peccary which goes in herds and is aggressive and truculent; but most of them let the dangerous big cat and the dangerous little hogs severely alone, and hunted only the tapir, deer, and capybara. The rare jaguars that become man-eaters, the occasional giant anacondas, the deadly poisonous snakes, and the cashadas, were all the subjects of superstitious tales. ”