Several times at
Port Valdes they were seen swimming from island to island.
Byron, in his voyage says he saw them drinking salt water.
Some of our officers likewise saw a herd apparently drinking
the briny fluid from a salina near Cape Blanco.
I imagine
in several parts of the country, if they do not drink salt
water, they drink none at all. In the middle of the day they
frequently roll in the dust, in saucer-shaped hollows. The
males fight together; two one day passed quite close to me,
squealing and trying to bite each other; and several were
shot with their hides deeply scored. Herds sometimes appear
to set out on exploring parties: at Bahia Blanca, where,
within thirty miles of the coast, these animals are extremely
unfrequent, I one day saw the tracks of thirty or forty, which
had come in a direct line to a muddy salt-water creek. They
then must have perceived that they were approaching the
sea, for they had wheeled with the regularity of cavalry, and
had returned back in as straight a line as they had advanced.
The guanacos have one singular habit, which is to me quite
inexplicable; namely, that on successive days they drop their
dung in the same defined heap. I saw one of these heaps
which was eight feet in diameter, and was composed of a
large quantity. This habit, according to M. A. d'Orbigny, is
common to all the species of the genus; it is very useful to
the Peruvian Indians, who use the dung for fuel, and are
thus saved the trouble of collecting it.
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