l parts of the country, if they do not drink salt
water, they drink none at all. In the middle of the day they frequently
roll in the dust, in saucer-shaped hollows. The males fight together;
two one day passed quite close to me, squealing and trying to bite each
other; and several were shot with their hides deeply scarred. Herds
sometimes appear to set out on exploring parties; at Bahia Blanca,
where, within thirty miles of the coast, these animals are extremely
unfrequent, I one day saw the tracks of thirty or forty, which had come
in a direct line to a muddy salt-water creek. They then must have
perceived that they were approaching the sea, for they had wheeled with
the regularity of cavalry, and had returned back in as straight a line
as they had advanced. The guanacos have one singular habit, which is
to me quite inexplicable; namely, that on successive days they drop
their dung in the same defined heap. I saw one of these heaps which
was eight feet in diameter, and was composed of a large quantity. This
habit, according to M. A. d'Orbigny, is common to all the species of
the genus; it is very useful to the Peruvian Indians, who use the dung
for fuel, and are thus saved the trouble of collecting it.

The guanacos appear to have favorite spots for lying down to die. On
the banks of the St. Cruz, in certain circumscribed spaces, which were
generally bushy and all near the river, the ground was actually white
with bones. On one such spot I counted between ten and twenty heads. I
particularly examined the bones; they did not appear, as some
scattered ones which I have seen, gnawed or broken, as if dragged
together by beasts of prey. The animals in most cases must have
crawled, before dying, beneath and amongst the bushes. Mr. Byron
informs me that during a former voyage he observed the same
circumstances on the banks of the Rio Gallegos. I do not at all
understand the reason of this, but I may observe, that the wounded
guanacos at the St. Cruz invariably walked towards the river. At St.
Jago in the Cape de Verd islands, I remember having seen in a ravine a
retired corner covered with bones of the goat; we at the time
exclaimed that it was the burial-ground of all the goats in the
island.

BATS

(FROM STUDIES OF ANIMATED NATURE.)

BY W. S. DALLAS, F.L.S.

[Illustration: SLEEPING BAT.]

Among the sounds which greet the ear of the wayfarer as the shades of
evening deepen into night, one of the commonest is