(_To the Editor._)
I read with much pleasure the article in your Number, 574, on Nutria
Fur: it was, to me, particularly acceptable, as I have been connected
for the last ten years with an establishment where, on an average,
150,000 Nutria Skins are annually manufactured, and the wool cut for
the use of hatters. I have searched every book of travels in Brazil,
&c., that I could procure, and the chief English works on zoology,
without being able to gather any description of the scientific name or
habits of the animal. All the information I could collect was from the
captains of various vessels that had visited Buenos Ayres, and brought
cargoes of skins; but their accounts were extremely vague and
unsatisfactory.
I perceive, however, that you have overlooked a peculiarity generally
attributed to the animal, which, if true, is, in my opinion, deserving
notice: viz.--the position of the female's teats, which are not placed
on the belly, as with most animals, but on the side, approaching to
the back, by which means it is enabled to suckle its young on both
sides at once, whilst swimming on the surface of the water; and it
presents, I have understood, a singular group to the observant
traveller.
I have sent the skin of a female Nutria herewith, for your inspection,
as regards the teats, &c. (from which the fur has been cut by
machinery,) with a small sample of the belly fur, prepared for the
covering of a hat; the wholesale price of the latter is now three
guineas per lb.: it is used as a substitute for beaver-wool on
second-rate hats. Our French correspondents term the skins
"Ratgondin."