biscacha

It is a "region where barley will not ripen except under very favorable circumstances and where maize in its most diminutive size has its most precarious development; where the potato, shrunk to its smallest proportions, is bitter; where the only grain is the quinoa, and where the only indigenous animals fit for food are the biscacha, the llama and the vicuna."

The Prehistoric World; or, Vanished races Emory Adams Allen

The biscacha is about the size and shape of the rabbit.

The Prehistoric World; or, Vanished races Emory Adams Allen

The biscacha is not a tribe of Indians, but, like the coney, a very feeble people, who dwell in caves or burrow underground, but all day long may be seen playing about the mounds they raise, or sitting on their hind legs on top of them.

Our Home in the Silver West A Story of Struggle and Adventure Gordon Stables 1875

Another singular fact bearing upon the habits of the _biscacha_ may here deserve mention.

Gaspar the Gaucho A Story of the Gran Chaco Mayne Reid 1850

North-American marmot (_Arctomys Ludoviciana) _, better known by the name of "prairie dog;" only that the subterranean dwellings of the _biscacha_ are larger, from the needs of a bigger-bodied animal.

Gaspar the Gaucho A Story of the Gran Chaco Mayne Reid 1850

Its congener, the _agouti_, affects the arid sterile plains of Patagonia, while the _biscacha_ is most met with on the fertile pampas further north; more especially along the borders of those far-famed thickets of tall thistles -- forests they might almost be called -- upon the roots of which it is said to feed.

Gaspar the Gaucho A Story of the Gran Chaco Mayne Reid 1850

Perhaps the most singular habit of the _biscacha_ is its collecting every loose article which chances to be lying near, and dragging all up to its burrow; by the mouth of which it forms a heap, often as large as the half of a cart-load dumped carelessly down.

Gaspar the Gaucho A Story of the Gran Chaco Mayne Reid 1850

This shares occupation with the _biscacha_, as does the other, an allied species, with the prairie dog.

Gaspar the Gaucho A Story of the Gran Chaco Mayne Reid 1850

There the _biscacha_, or _viscacha_ -- as it is indifferently spelt -- plays pretty much the same part as the rabbit in our northern lands.

Gaspar the Gaucho A Story of the Gran Chaco Mayne Reid 1850

"Guinea pigs," all of which are cousins-german of the _biscacha_.

Gaspar the Gaucho A Story of the Gran Chaco Mayne Reid 1850