Of all the beasts in South America Admiral Kennedy writes most enthusiastically of the guanaco, an animal nearly allied to the camel, weighing about 180 lbs., abundant from the Rio Colorado to the Straits of Magellan, and affording good sport to the stalker.
But a beast which carries no ‘head,’ which, according even to its admirers, ‘neighs like a horse’ when giving warning of danger, and ‘quacks like a duck’ when alarmed, seems to one who knows neither guanaco nor ciervo a very unattractive creature compared with the really fine deer, C. paludosus, which is found upon the Chaco of Paraguay and in the Argentine Republic. This deer somewhat resembles the red deer of Scotland, but grows to large dimensions. The horns figured are from some in the British Museum.
Besides the ciervo, South America boasts, according to Admiral Kennedy, of four other species of deer, the gama (C. campestris), a beast rather larger than the Scotch roe deer, common all over the Pampas, the ghazu vira or swamp deer, the ghazu colorado, and the venadillo. It is a pity that some enterprising sportsman does not devote a year or so to sport in South America. Jaguar and ciervo (to say nothing of the possibility of bagging deer almost unknown to his brother sportsmen in England) should be bait enough to tempt some one to more thoroughly investigate the sporting possibilities of South America.
For a fuller knowledge of South American game beasts, the reader is referred to Admiral Kennedy’s book, and to Mr. Hudson’s ‘Naturalist on La Plata.’
Musk ox
CHAPTER XIX
MUSK OX
By Warburton Pike