CHINCIII'LLIDLE, a family of animals belonging to the order Badman.
This family is defined by Mr. Bennett, to whom we are principally indebted for our knowledge of the species, as follows :— 4-4 Upper incisors simple ; molars, consisting of two or three Lvnial or riband-like bony lamella, or plates, parallel with each other, entirely surrounded with a vitreous substance; the crowns exactly opposite to each other and flattened by attrition. The posterior limbs nearly twice as long as the anterior. The tail produced, with long and somewhat bristly hairs above and at the tip. The Chinchil !ides are gregarious and subterranean in their habits, and mild in disposition. Mr. Waterhouse, in his ' Natural History of Mannnalia,' makes the Chinehillina a sub-family of the family Ilystricidce of the Rodeatia. It embraces the following genera,—Lagidiam, Lagoslornus, and CA inchilia.
Le:girlie:* (Lagoa*, Bennett). Incisors, 2; molars, = 20.
The Incisors are sharpened, and each molar consists of three complete oblique plates. Skull arched posteriorly and above; the superior cellules of the tympanum inconspicuous. All the feet 4-toed, the great toe being entirely absent ; nails long and subfalcular. Ears very long. Tail long. Fur soft., but caduceus.
L. Curled, Wagner (Lagoa, Curieri, Bennett). Size and much of the general form of the rabbit. Posterior limbs twice the length of the anterior : tail about equal in length to the body, excluding the head. Whiskers very numerous, closely set, jet black, ten or twelve of the longest on each side being exceedingly thick and rigid, and seven inches loug. Ears nearly like a long parallelogram, rounded at the tip, three inches long and one inch broad, with the margins rolled in below, so sparingly furnished with short scattered hairs as to appear almost naked. Fore feet like the hinder, with four toes only, there being no vestige of a thumb ; claws small, slightly sharpened, and entirely concealed by long and somewhat bristly hairs s • those of the hinder feet similar in shape and rather larger, but that of the inner too flattened, curved inwards, and exposed, the immediately adjoining hairs giving place to a tuft of about eight rows of short stiff horny curved bristles, approaching nearly in rigidity to the comb-like appendage found in almost the same situation in the Clenoneys 11lassonii of Gray. A similar structure occurs in the Chin
chilla. The fur is beautifully soft, downy, and of considerable length, but so loosely attached to the skin that it readily falls off, unless handled with care. It is dusky at the base and to within a short distance of the tip, where, for an extent of from one to three lines, it Is dirty white, more or leas tinged with yel lowish-brown. A few long black hairs, most numerous pos teriorly, protrude through IL The general tone of colour is a mottled grayish-ash. On the sides of the neck and body, where the tips of the fur merge more into yellowish brown than on the back, and where they are also of greater length, as well as on the haunches and beneath, the latter tinge appears rather more predominant. There is little of the dusky colour visible on the under surface. The hairs of the tail below are extremely short, closely depressed, and of a brownish-black ; on its sides they are of two kinds, black and white ; and thin is also the case with the very long rigid and erectile hairs which form a crest along its upper surface. The very long bristly hairs which project in a tuft at the tip are wholly black.
Mr. Bennett believes this species to be the Viscacha of all the writers from Pedro de Cieert downwards, including Acoeta, 0areiliteno, Peter de Loet, Nieremberg, Feralhle, Ulloa, Vidaurtl, Molina, Schmidtmeyer, and Stevenson, who have stated that anitnnl to be an inhabitant of the western or Peruvian declivities of the Andes. Messrs. Blninville, Derunarest, and Lesson are among the modern zoologists who have noticed the Viocachn ; Lesson, in his ' Manuel,' apparently confounding the eastern and western species, gives it as the Lepus riscaceia of Gmelin, pincer) it among the hares, turd quotes Desmarest, as expressing his opinion in his Mammalogie,' that it ought to be the typo of a new genus under which the Chinchilla might be perhaps arranged.