Chapter XVIII: Big Game of North America (4)

There is no lack of game either upon the Pampas or in the forests and along the river-beds of Central and South America, but as yet very few English sportsmen appear to have visited either the seas of grass or the luxuriant tropical forests of Patagonia, Paraguay and the Amazon. Admiral Kennedy, indeed, in his recent book, ‘Sporting Sketches in South America,’ is, I fancy, the first sportsman pure and simple who has visited these regions and described the sport to be found therein, and it is to be regretted that even he has not had the luck to secure specimens of all the principal beasts known in the country. Others have, of course, written of the Amazon and of the Pampas, but they have been naturalists, who cared more to secure a new mouse than mere trophies of the chase, however fine.

According to Admiral Kennedy, the game list of South America includes the guanaco, five kinds of deer, the ostrich or rhea, the jaguar, puma, tapir, wild cattle, and the wild pig. The last two species are, of course, representatives of domestic animals which have become wild, but, unless report belies them, there are wild cattle in the world (e.g. in the Galapagos Islands) which are as well worth hunting as the biggest buffaloes.

The jaguar, though a much larger beast than the puma (identical with the panther of the West), appears to be anything but a sporting beast, haunting river jungles and dense swamps, and being unable, according to Mr. Hudson (the ‘Naturalist on La Plata’) to hold his own even against his smaller cousin, the puma, who is described by the same authority as a ‘bold hunter,’ invariably preferring large to small game, which he kills as a tiger does, by dislocating the neck. The puma is, according to the same authority, a persistent persecutor of the jaguar. Both Mr. Hudson and Admiral Kennedy seem agreed that the puma is a very dangerous enemy to the guanaco, and a scourge to everything living upon the Pampas, except man and the gama (_C. campestris_), which protects itself as the skunk does, by its unpleasant smell. Mr. Hudson’s stories of the strange affection of the puma for man, although calculated to excite incredulity at first, coincide somewhat strangely with some of the Western stories of the panther (or puma) already narrated; but it must be borne in mind that the panther of the West does attack man in a few rare instances, according to the evidence of Mr. Perry.

Of all the beasts in South America Admiral Kennedy writes most enthusiastically of the guanaco, an animal nearly allied to the camel, weighing about 180 lbs., abundant from the Rio Colorado to the Straits of Magellan, and affording good sport to the stalker.

But a beast which carries no ‘head,’ which, according even to its admirers, ‘neighs like a horse’ when giving warning of danger, and ‘quacks like a duck’ when alarmed, seems to one who knows neither guanaco nor ciervo a very unattractive creature compared with the really fine deer, _C. paludosus_, which is found upon the Chaco of Paraguay and in the Argentine Republic. This deer somewhat resembles the red deer of Scotland, but grows to large dimensions. The horns figured are from some in the British Museum.

Besides the ciervo, South America boasts, according to Admiral Kennedy, of four other species of deer, the gama (_C. campestris_), a beast rather larger than the Scotch roe deer, common all over the Pampas, the ghazu vira or swamp deer, the ghazu colorado, and the venadillo. It is a pity that some enterprising sportsman does not devote a year or so to sport in South America. Jaguar and ciervo (to say nothing of the possibility of bagging deer almost unknown to his brother sportsmen in England) should be bait enough to tempt some one to more thoroughly investigate the sporting possibilities of South America.

For a fuller knowledge of South American game beasts, the reader is referred to Admiral Kennedy’s book, and to Mr. Hudson’s ‘Naturalist on La Plata.’