I tied up the skin in a silk
pocket-handkerchief, and so carried it home: this handkerchief,
after being well washed, I continually used, and it was of course
as repeatedly washed; yet every time, for a space of one year and
seven months, when first unfolded, I distinctly perceived the
odour. This appears an astonishing instance of the permanence of
some matter, which nevertheless in its nature must be most subtile
and volatile. Frequently, when passing at the distance of half a
mile to leeward of a herd, I have perceived the whole air tainted
with the effluvium. I believe the smell from the buck is most
powerful at the period when its horns are perfect, or free from the
hairy skin. When in this state the meat is, of course, quite
uneatable; but the Gauchos assert, that if buried for some time in
fresh earth, the taint is removed. I have somewhere read that the
islanders in the north of Scotland treat the rank carcasses of the
fish-eating birds in the same manner.
The order Rodentia is here very numerous in species: of mice alone
I obtained no less than eight kinds. (3/4. In South America I
collected altogether twenty-seven species of mice, and thirteen
more are known from the works of Azara and other authors.
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