Viscacha

“Viscacha is a stout-built rodent, resembling a marmot, from 18 inches to two feet long, exclusive of the tail, which is from six to eight inches. Four digits on the fore and three on the hind limbs, the latter furnished with long, compressed and pointed nails; muzzle broad, and covered with a velvet-like coat of brown hair; fur mottled gray above, yellowish-white beneath; dark band on each cheek, a white band on muzzle, running back on each side almost as far as the eye. They are nocturnal, and resemble rabbits in their movements, but are less active. They are found on the pampas, from Buenos Ayres to Patagonia. These animals have the strange habit of dragging all sorts of hard and apparently useless objects to the mouth of their burrow, where bones, stones, thistle stalks, and lumps of earth may be found collected into a large heap, sufficient, according to Darwin to fill a wheel-barrow."—(Charles Leonard-Stuart, 1911)

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