A glance at the animal world of the Peruvian coast shows us the same poverty of species as in the great African desert. A fox (Canis Azaræ) seems here to play the part of the hyæna and the jackal; and is found both in the cotton-plantations along the streams, and in the Lomas, where he is destructive to the young lambs. The large American felidæ, the puma, and the jaguar, seldom appear on the coast, where they attain a more considerable size than in the mountains. The cowardly puma is afraid of man; while the bloodthirsty jaguar penetrates into the plantations, where he lies in wait for the oxen and horses, and avoids with remarkable sagacity, the manifold traps and pitfalls that are laid for him by the hacienderos.
In the cultivated districts Opossums are found among the low bushes, in deserted dwellings, or in storerooms; armadillos (Dasypus tatuay) are sometimes shot in the fields, and wild hogs of an enormous size infest the thickets near some of the plantations.
OPOSSUM.
Instead of the antelope and the gazelle of the African deserts, the Venado, a species of deer, makes its appearance on the Peruvian coast. It chiefly lives in the low bushes, which are scattered here and there, and after sunset visits the cultivated fields where it causes considerable damage.
Besides the numerous sea- and strand-birds, the carrion vultures and the condor, often found in large numbers feasting upon the marine animals that have been cast ashore, are the most conspicious among the feathered tribes of the coast. A small falcon (Falco sparverius) is likewise often seen, and a small burrowing owl (Athene cunicularia) haunts almost every ruinous building. The pearl-owl (Strix perlata), performing the useful services of our own barn-owl, is protected and encouraged in many plantations, as it thins the ranks of the mice. Swallows are scarce; nor do they build their nests on the houses, but on solitary walls, far from the habitations of man.
Among the singing birds, the beautiful crowned fly-catcher (Myoarchus coronatus) is one of the most remarkable. Its head, breast and belly are of a burning red; its wings and back blackish brown. It always sits upon the highest top of the bushes, flies vertically upwards, whirls about a short time singing in the air, and then again descends in a straight line upon its former resting-place. Some tanagras and parrots, and two starling-like birds, the red-breasted picho and the lustrous black chivillo, that are frequently kept in cages on account of their agreeable song, are found in the coast-valleys; and various pigeons, among others the neat little turtuli and the more stately cuculi, frequent the neighbourhood of the plantations.
Among the lizard tribes large and brilliantly green iguanas are found on the southern coast; but much more frequently dull and sombre agamas lurk among the rocks and stones. Snakes, both venomous and harmless, are in general tolerably rare, and occur both in the fruitful lands and the sand-plains.
The animated sea-shore forms a striking contrast to the death-like solitude of the interior. Troops of carrion vultures gather about the large marine animals cast ashore by the surf; numerous strand-birds are greedily on the look-out for the shell-fish left by the retreating tide, or for the crabs and sea-spiders that everywhere draw their furrows about the beach; and sea-otters and seals sun themselves on the cliffs along the whole coast, except in the neighbourhood of the seaports where they have been extirpated or driven away by incessant persecutions.
To the north of Chancay, steep sand-hills rise to the height of 300 or 400 feet, abruptly verging to the sea. The road leading along the side of these hills, would be extremely dangerous but for the unstable nature of the soil. For though at each false step the mule slides with his rider towards the sea, it is very easy for him to regain his footing on the yielding sand. A large stone on one of these hills bears a striking resemblance to a sleeping sea-lion, and almost perpendicularly beneath it lies a little cove, inhabited by a number of seals. At night the bark of these animals, mixing with the hollow roar of the breakers, fills the traveller with a kind of involuntary terror.