. Brehm's Life of animals : a complete natural history for popular home instruction and for the use of schools. Mammalia. Mammals; Animal behavior. THE GUINEA PIG FAMILY. 359 The Couiy To describe its life in captivity I will in Captiv- quote Azara's observations: " I had Hy- a specimen in my possession which had been captured when fully matured; I permitted it to range my room at will and left it a year without water; for it does not drink. When frightened by anything it ran with comparative agility; I could always overtake it, however, by following at a lei- surely pace. All its movemen
. Brehm's Life of animals : a complete natural history for popular home instruction and for the use of schools. Mammalia. Mammals; Animal behavior. THE GUINEA PIG FAMILY. 359 The Couiy To describe its life in captivity I will in Captiv- quote Azara's observations: " I had Hy- a specimen in my possession which had been captured when fully matured; I permitted it to range my room at will and left it a year without water; for it does not drink. When frightened by anything it ran with comparative agility; I could always overtake it, however, by following at a lei- surely pace. All its movements are more or less clumsy; but it readily climbs up and down a stick and grasps it so firmly that it requires considerable effort to loosen its hold. The back of a chair, the point of a perpendicular stake afford it a sufficiently good resting-place upon which to sleep and even recu- perate. It is slow-witted and of so quiet and lazy a disposition that it sometimes does not change its place or attitude for twenty-four or forty-eight hours. My prisoner never moved except when it was feeding. Once only did I see it running about at night, nevertheless I believe it to be a nocturnal animal. In the first days of its captivity my Cerco- labes would sit down on the back of a chair, but never on anything having a plane surface; one day, however, it climbed up a window and discovered the edge of the window-shutter; it sought no further for a retreat after this. On the shutter it spent all its time, sitting like a statue in its extraoidinary posi- tion, without the slightest movement. It held on only with its hinder feet, using neither fore feet nor tail to secure its position, crossed its fore legs and put its muzzle into them, as if it wished to kiss its hands. Thus it sat, without moving, without look- ing about even, till the hour of its meal arrived. It ate very little of the proffered bread, maize, manioc roots, herbs, leaves and flowers, but showed a tendency to vary its diet. I
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1800, bookdecade1890, booksubjecta, booksubjectmammals
