BIZCACHAS AND BIZCACHERAS—INTERESTED NEIGHBOURS—A PROVIDENT
MOTHER—PRAIRIE-DOGS AND RATTLESNAKES—OWLS THAT LIVE IN BURROWS.
That strange habit which the bower-birds have of bringing all sorts of
things—such as bleached bones, shells, etc.—to the places they make,
is practised also by at least one species of mammal—the Bizcacha or
Vizcacha, namely, an animal whose home _par excellence_ is the pampas
of South America, where it takes the place of the allied prairie-dog,
or marmot, of the northern continent. It is a quaint-looking animal,
something like a rabbit, Darwin thought, but with larger gnawing teeth,
and a much longer tail. Like the rabbit, too, it is social in its habits,
and makes a burrow of huge size, with a mound piled up all around it. It
is to this mound that the bizcacha brings almost everything that it finds
lying about, which is not too large for it to drag or carry, and just
as in Australia one looks for anything one has lost in the habitations
of the bower-birds, so on the pampas the first thing to do is to search
the neighbouring bizcacheras—to use the Spanish word for a settlement or
colony of these animals.
Thus, if a Spanish gentleman should happen to drop his watch whilst
riding, or a herdsman his whip, he is not much put out about it, even if
it happened on a dark night. Next morning he rides again along the track
of his horse’s hoofs, and comes back with the watch in his pocket or the
whip in his hand.
Nobody knows why the bizcacha does this, or, to talk in a more scientific
way, what is the origin of the habit. There can be no doubt whatever
that the flowers or shells brought to the gardens or play-houses of the
bower-birds answer the purpose of decoration, and are thought pretty by
the birds. The bizcacha may have the same idea, but if so it seems funny
that no other member of his family, and, indeed, as far as I am aware, no
other mammal at all, should act similarly, or seem attracted by objects
in themselves, independently of any use they can be put to. Nor does the
bizcacha play with these things—at least I have not heard of his being
seen to do so. He just pulls them to his mound and then seems to pay no
further attention to them. Another explanation has been suggested[4]
which I think is more likely to be the real one. The bizcacha is
extremely careful in clearing the ground, not only round its own burrow,
but all about the village, as a collection of bizcacha burrows may be
called. This he can only do by removing all objects, whether growing or
merely lying about, but it is his instinct instead of dragging them away
from the village into the country at large, to drag them to his mound and
get rid of them there. Perhaps if he were to carry them off he would not
know when to stop. The mound gives him a definite place to bring them to,
and, moreover, he feels safer going towards his burrow than away from
it. However, whatever may be his reason, this is what the bizcacha does.
He is an animal that makes a mound or hill of earth, and then brings
everything he can find to that mound, and lays it on the top of it.
Though the bizcacha is not so very much bigger than a rabbit yet he makes
a very much bigger burrow to live in, and the entrance to it especially
is enormous, being five or six feet across, and deep in proportion, so
that if a man were to jump into one he would lie hidden up to the waist.
It is from the earth that is dug out of this great pit that the mound
is made, and as bizcachas make their burrows very close together, the
mound round one becomes part of that round another, so that at last there
comes to be one great mound like a low hillock, with several large pits
all over it, and this is the bizcachera, or village of the bizcachas—the
bizcacha warren as we should call it. But though it is their village and
they have made it, it is not only the bizcachas who live in it. Quite a
colony of birds and animals dwell there, some of them not at all for the
good of the rightful owners. Chief amongst the latter are the fox and the
weasel of the pampas. The fox—a beautiful, grey animal, something like a
dog in appearance—comes to the village, and having driven a pair of the
poor bizcachas out of their burrows, takes up his abode in it himself.
That, at present, is all the harm he does, for the young bizcachas are
not yet big enough to come out of their burrows, and, beyond this first
act of spoliation, he does not interfere with the old ones. But, by and
by, the young bizcachas, who have grown to be nice plump little things,
begin to leave their burrows and play about on the mound, and then day by
day—or rather night by night—the fox pounces upon them and eats them. If
the fox itself is a mother with a family of cubs to feed, the havoc she
does in the bizcachera is tremendous. The poor little village children
are chased from one hole to another, and killed, often in their very own
nurseries, in spite of the efforts of their parents to defend them—for a
pair of grown bizcachas are no match for a single fox. At length, when
all the fat little succulent things—the “_marmots d’enfants_,” as we may
call them—have been eaten off, and only the bereaved parents—who are
tough—remain, the fox—a good mother—collects her own young ones about
her, and leads them to the next village, which she hopes will be better
supplied.
The weasel, probably, behaves in much the same way as the fox, but
whether a pretty little burrowing owl that makes the bizcachera his
home—though he generally makes his own burrow—does any harm to the young
ones, I cannot, for certain, say. I should think, however, that, as he
is quite a small bird, such a meal would be beyond his strength, even
though it might accord with his inclinations. A pair of these little
owls are often to be seen sitting together, just at the entrance of one
of the bizcacha burrows, and when the bizcacha comes out he may sit
beside them, for a time, looking quite friendly, and as though he had
come to have a chat. One might fancy that tea would be brought up soon
by a servant. This, however, is mere imagination. In reality the two
species are quite indifferent to one another, as is often the case with
different animals that yet live together. Besides the owls, a lively,
pretty little bird, called by the Spaniards the minera, makes holes in
the sides of the pit, which forms the entrance to the bizcacha’s burrow,
and a little swallow uses these holes for itself, and lays its eggs in
them, when the mineras have flown away. It is like a miniature sandpit,
with owls and mineras as well as sand-martins living in it, and it would
all be very comfortable and harmonious if it were not for the fox and
the weasel. The comfort is that it is not every bizcachera that has a
fox for its landlord. Absentee landlordism is appreciated on the pampas.
Most wonderful of all, as it seems, all sorts of insects live in these
bizcacha villages, that are hardly seen anywhere else. Thus quite a
little zoetrope of varied life revolves about the habitation that one
animal has made for itself.
It is much the same with the little prairie-dog, or marmot, that lives,
as its name implies, on the prairies of North America. This little
creature is a burrower, too, and, like the bizcacha, it throws up a
mound of earth outside the burrow, on which it sits up on its hind legs
and surveys the country, just as if it were a man. The mound, however,
is a more ordinary one than that made by the bizcacha, and although the
burrows are dug pretty close to each other, each one of them seems to
have its separate mound. A great number of these—and the prairies are
sometimes studded with them as far as the eye can reach—constitutes what
is called a “dog-town” or “village”; and a very interesting thing it is
to come upon such a town, with its tens or even hundreds of thousands of
inhabitants, a large proportion of whom are always to be seen sitting up
on their dome-like mounds, like sentinels posted all about, to prevent
the city being taken by surprise.
Here, too, the city has an alien population. There are burrowing owls,
and probably foxes too, but the most remarkable animal that takes up its
abode in the burrows of the prairie-dog, or marmot, is the dreaded and
terrible rattlesnake. As in the case of the fox with the bizcacha, the
possession, here taken, is forcible, or, at least, we may assume that the
poor little marmot would resist it if it could. It would appear, however,
that the legitimate owners are not expelled by the rattlesnake, but with
their family continue to live in the same burrow—as long, that is to
say, as the family lasts, for of the relations subsisting between it and
the reptile there is now no doubt. “It was generally thought,” says the
Rev. J. G. Wood, “on the discovery of owls and rattlesnakes within the
burrows of the prairie-dogs, that these incongruous beings associated
together in perfect harmony, forming, in fact, a ‘Happy Family’ below the
surface of the ground. The ruthless scalpel of the naturalist, however,
effectually dissipated all such romantic notions, and proved that the
snake was by no means a welcome guest but an intruder on the premises,
self-billeted on the inmates, like soldiers on obnoxious householders,
procuring lodging without permission, and eating the inhabitants by way
of board. The reason for the presence of the owls is not so evident,
though it is not impossible that they may also snap up an occasional
prairie-dog in its earliest infancy, while it is still very young,
small, and tender.” At this period, however, the young would, no doubt,
be vigilantly guarded by the mother, and as the owl is quite a little
bird, it would not be likely to attack them under these circumstances.
Moreover, the existence of countless burrows, all ready-made, is quite
sufficient to explain the owl’s presence in any of them, since it is not
driven out by the owner. In an illustration of the work from which the
foregoing passage is quoted, the owl is further represented as itself
having young ones, which it is defending from the rattlesnake. Whether it
really breeds in the burrows I do not know, but with its habits I can see
no reason why it should not. For the rattlesnake, too, the burrows must
make splendid places of retirement, so that even if it were a question
of lodging only, and not board, I can see nothing strange in its going
into them. I believe myself, indeed, that this is the principal good
sought, and the other only incidental to it. Wood writes as if it was
quite an unheard of thing for two or more animals of different species
to live together, without hurting one another; but this—as no one knew
better than himself—is not the case, as we may see with the shark and
pilot-fish, or in an ants’ nest, or in the bizcacheras that we have just
been speaking about—for what harm do the swallows or mineras do to each
other or the bizcacheras? There was really nothing so very romantic—if by
that is meant silly—in the idea of the “Happy Family.” Ordinary people
were not so much at fault, nor were naturalists so very superior.