As rabbits are extremely numerous in every part of this country, there
is likewise great variety amongst them. Some, of various colours, like
those of our country, live under ground. Others, which hide themselves
under shrubs and bushes, are less than hares, larger than our rabbits,
and of a bay, or rather a chesnut colour. Their flesh, which is
extremely well tasted, may be seen at the tables even of the more
wealthy. Several pairs of these rabbits are said to have been brought
from Spain by some person who, in travelling through Paraguay into Peru,
took rabbits of each sex out of their coop, and set them loose on the
plain to feed, at which time some of them escaped and ran away. Their
posterity is, at this day, extremely numerous in Tucuman, especially in
the land of St. Iago. Other kinds of rabbits, scarce bigger than
dormice, conceal themselves sometimes in the hedges of fields, sometimes
in holes under ground, and, being innumerable, are extremely pernicious
to wheat. The Abipones, who undertake most of their journeys without
provisions, when they wish to dine or sup, set fire to the tall dry
grass in the plain, in order to kill and roast the animals concealed
underneath it, which leap out for fear of the fire. Were tigers, deer,
stags, and emus, not to be had, there would never be a deficiency of
rabbits, a hundred of which they easily take, and hang upon a string,
after a chase of this kind. I was told by Barreda, the old General of
the St. Iagans, that in hasty marches in search of the enemy, when there
was no time for hunting, rabbits, dried in the air, served the Abipones
for victuals.