The Naturalist in La Plata

During recent years we have heard much about the great and rapid changes now going on in the plants and animals of all the temperate regions of the globe colonized by Europeans....

The Puma has been singularly unfortunate in its biographers. Formerly it often happened that writers were led away by isolated and highly exaggerated incidents to attribute very...

For many years, while living in my own home on the pampas, I kept a journal, in which all my daily observations on the habits of animals and kindred matters were carefully noted...

Strictly speaking, the only weapons of vertebrates are teeth, claws, horns, and spurs. Horns belong only to the ruminants, and the spur is a rare weapon. There are also many ani...

The statement that birds instinctively fear man is frequently met with in zoological works written since the _Origin of Species_ appeared; but almost the only reason--absolutely...

Under this heading I have put together several notes from my journals on subjects which have no connection with each other, except that they relate chiefly to the parental insti...

It might possibly give the reader some faint conception of the odious character of this creature (for adjectives are weak to describo it) when I say that, in talking to stranger...

There is in La Plata a large handsome grasshopper (Zoniopoda tarsata), the habits of which in its larva and imago stages are in strange contrast, like those in certain lepidopte...

One of the most curious things I have encountered in my observations on animal life relates to a habit of the larger species of dragon-flies inhabiting the Pampas and Patagonia....

There cannot be a doubt that some animals possess an instinctive knowledge of their enemies--or, at all events, of some of their enemies--though I do not believe that this facul...

Two humble-bees, Bombus thoracicus and B. violaceus, are found on the pampas; the first, with a primrose yellow thorax, and the extremity of the abdomen bright rufous, slightly...

Naturalists, like kings and emperors, have their favourites, and as my zoological sympathies, which are wider than my knowledge, embrace all classes of beings, there are of cour...

It was formerly supposed that the light of the firefly (in any family possessing the luminous power) was a safeguard against the attacks of other insects, rapacious and nocturna...

Some time ago, while turning over a quantity of rubbish in a little-used room, I disturbed a large black spider. Rushing forth, just in time to save itself from destruction thro...

Most people are familiar with the phenomenon of "death-feigning," commonly seen in coleopterous insects, and in many spiders. This highly curious instinct is also possessed by s...

Humming-birds are perhaps the very loveliest things in nature, and many celebrated writers have exhausted their descriptive powers in vain efforts to picture them to the imagina...

Amongst the feathered notables from all parts of the world found gathered at the Zoological Gardens in London is the Crested Screamer from South America. It is in many respects...

The South American Tree-creepers, or Woodhewers, as they are sometimes called, although confined exclusively to one continent, their range extending from Southern Mexico to the...

In reading books of Natural History we meet with numerous instances of birds possessing the habit of assembling together, in many cases always at the same spot, to indulge in an...

The vizcacha is perhaps the most characteristic of the South American Rodentia, [Footnote: "According to Mr. Waterhouse, of all rodents the vizcacha is most nearly related to ma...

Lest any one should misread the title to this chapter, I hasten to say that the huanaco, or guanaco as it is often spelt, is not a perishing species; nor, as things are, is it l...

My purpose in this paper is to discuss a group of curious and useless emotional instincts of social animals, which have not yet been properly explained. Excepting two of the num...

recall it as well as if my years had been five-and-twenty; perhaps better. It was on a summer's evening, and I was out by myself at some distance from the house, playing about t...

There is no mode of progression so delightful as riding on horseback. Walking, rowing, bicycling are pleasant exercises in their way, but the muscular exertion and constant exer...

We can imagine what the feelings of a lapidary would be--an enthusiast whose life is given to the study of precious stones, and whose sole delight is in the contemplation of the...

told in the present chapter, which is not intended for the severe naturalist, but rather for such readers as may like to hear something about the pains and pleasures of the seek...