THE AGOUTI, or Long-nosed CAVY*.

 

            THIS animal is about the size of a hare, and has been regarded by most systematic writers, as a species of rabbit, or large rat.  These, however, it resembles in some minute characters only; but, in natural disposition, it differs essentially from them.  It has the rudeness of hair, the grunting, and likewise the voracious appetite [58] of a hog; and, when fully glutted, it conceals, like the fox, the remainder of its food in different places.  The agouti delights in cutting and gnawing every thing he meets with.  When irritated, the hair of his back rises, and he strikes the ground forcibly with his hind-feet.  His bite is cruel.*  He digs not a hole, like the rabbit, nor sits on the ground like the hair; but generally lives in the hollows of decayed trees.  Fruits, potatoes, and manioc, are the common food of those which live near the habitations of men.  But those that live in the woods and savannahs, feed upon leaves and roots, plants and shrubs.  The agouti, like the squirrel, uses his fore-feet in holding his food, and carrying it to his mouth.  He runs very nimbly both on plain and rising grounds.  But, as his fore-legs are much shorter than his hind-legs, he would tumble headlong, if he did not slacken his course in descending.  Both his eye and his ear are fine.  He stops and listens to the sound of music.  The flesh of those which are fat and well fed, is not very bad, though it be hard, and not very agreeable to the taste.  They scald the agouti, and make him ready, in the same manner as a pig.  He is hunted with dogs.  When forced among the cut sugar canes, he is soon taken; because these grounds being generally co- [59] vered a foot thick with straw and leaves, at each leap he sinks in this litter, so that a man may overtake and slay him with a baton.  He commonly runs very nimbly before the dogs; and, when he gains his retreat, he lies squat, and remains obstinately in his concealment.  The hunters are obliged to chace [sic] him out by filling his hole with smoke:  The animal, half suffocated, utters mournful cries; but never issues forth, unless when pushed to the last extremity.  His cry, when he often repeats when disturbed or irritated, resembles that of a small hog.  If taken young, he is easily tamed, and goes out and returns of his own accord.  These animals commonly reside in the woods and hedges; where the females choose a place well covered and bushy, and there prepare a bed of leaves and hay for their young.  They annually produce two or three, but generally two.*  Like the cats, they transport their young, two or three days after birth, into the hollows of trees, where they suckle them for a short time.  The young are soon in a condition to follow their mother, and to search for food.  Thus their time of growth is short; and, consequently, the duration of their lives cannot be very long.

 

The agouti appears to be an animal peculiar to the southern parts of America, none of them being ever found in the old world.  They are com- [60] mon in Brasil, in Guiana, in St Domingo, and in all the islands.  They seem to require a warm climate in order to subsist and to multiply.  They can live, however, in France, if kept in a dry place, and sheltered from the winter frosts.  Even in America, they appear not in the temperate or cold regions.  In the islands there is only the species of agouti which we have described.  But at Cayenne, and in Guiana and Brasil, a second species is mentioned, called Agouchi, which is said to be uniformly smaller than the first.  But we are assured, by the evidence of people who have lived long at Cayenne, and who know both the agouti and agouchi, the latter of which we have never been able to procure, that the animal we have described is the true agouti.  We had it alive:  It was as large as a rabbit; its hair was rude, and of a brown colour, a little mixed with red.  Its upper lip was divided like that of the hare:  Its tail was still shorter than the tail of the rabbit:  The ears were short and broad.  The upper jaw advanced beyond the under:  The muzzle resembled that of the dormouse, and the teeth those of the marmot.  The neck was long, and the legs slender:  It had four toes on the fore, and three on the hind-feet.  Marcgrave and most naturalists after him, have asserted, that the agouti had six toes on the hind-feet.  M. Brisson is the only writer who has not copied this error of Marcgrave:  Having described the animal [61] from nature, he found, as we did, only three toes on the hind-feet.

 

SUPPLEMENT.

 

            We have little to add concerning the agouti:  M. de la Borde informs us, that, in Guiana, it is the most common quadruped, all the woods, plains, heights, and even the marshes, being full of them.

 

            “The Agouti,” says he, “is about the size of a hare; his skin is hard, and lasts very long when employed as an upper-leather to shoes.   He has no grease:  His flesh is as white, and nearly as good as that of the rabbit, having the same taste and flavour.  Whether old or young, their flesh is always tender; but those which inhabit the sea-coast are best.  They are taken in traps, or hunted with dogs.  The Indians and Negroes, who know how to allure them by whistling, or imitating their cries, kill as many of them as they please.  When pursued, they conceal themselves, like the rabbits, in the holes of old trees.  They hold their food in their paws, like the squirrels.  Their ordinary food, which they often conceal in the earth, to be used occasionally, are the nuts of the maripa, of the tourlovri, of the corana, &c.; and, after concealing these nuts, they often touch them not for six [62] months.  They multiply as fast as the rabbits, producing three, four, and sometimes five young ones, during every season of the year.  They live not in numbers in the same hole; but they are either found alone, or the mother with her young.  They are easily tamed, and eat almost every thing.  When in a domestic state, they remove not to any great distance, and always return to the house spontaneously.  But they constantly retain a little of their savage disposition.  In general, they remain in their holes during the night, unless the moon shines bright; but they run about during most of the day.  There are some countries, as about the mouth of the river of the Amazones, where these animals are so numerous, that they are often met with in scores.  [63]

Notes

 

*  Cavy, with a long nose; divided upper lip; short rounded lips; black eyes; hair hard and shining; on the body mixed with red, brown, and black; on the rump, of a bright orange colour; belly yellow; legs almost naked, slender, and black; four toes on the fore-feet, three on the hind; tail short, and naked; size of a rabbit; Pennant’s Synops. of quad. p. 245.

 

Agouti is the Indian name of this animal; but, in Brasil it is called Cotia; Pison, et Marcgrave.

                                                                                                                 

Acuti or agouti; Hist. du Nouveau Monde par Jean de Laet, p. 484.  The little that Laet has said of this animal is transcribed from a Portuguese writer. 

 

Aguti; Pison. Hist. nat. du Brasil. p. 102.  Acuti or Aguti; Marcgrave, Hist. nat. Brasil. p. 224.

 

Couti; Hist. des Indes par Souchu de Rennefort, p. 203.

                                                            

Mus sylvestric Americanus, cuniculi magnitudine, pilis et voce porcelli; Ray, Synops. quad. p. 226.

                                                                               

Cuniculus omnium vulgatissimus, agui vulto; Barrere, Hist. de la France Equinoctiale, p. 153.

 

Cvia, aguit, vel acuit Brasiliensibus; Klein. quad. p. 30.

 

Cuniculus caudatus, auritus, pilis ex rufo et susco mixtis, rigidis vestitus; Brisson. Regn. anim. p. 143.

                                                                                

Mus agui, cauda abreviata, palmis tetradactylis, plantis tridactylis, abdomine flavescante; Linn. Syst. p. 80 [back to page 58].

 

*  This animal is very mischievous:  The capuchins of Olinda in Brasil brought up a young one, and used the precaution of extracting his teeth; yet he continued to extend his devastation as far as his chain allowed him; Hist. des Indes par Souchu de Rennefort, p. 203 [back to page 59]. 

 

*  Hist. gen. des isles Antilles, par le Pere du Tertre, tom. 2. p. 296 [back to page 60]