campestris), the male of which gives out an effluvium quite as
far-reaching although not so abominable in character as that of the
Mephitis? It comes in disagreeable whiffs to the human nostril when the
perfumer of the wilderness is not even in sight. Yet it is not a
protection; on the contrary, it is the reverse, and, like the dazzling
white plumage so attractive to birds of prey, a direct disadvantage,
informing all enemies for leagues around of its whereabouts. It is not,
therefore, strange that wherever pumas are found, deer are never very
abundant; the only wonder is that, like the ancient horse of America,
they have not become extinct.

The gauchos of the pampas, however, give _a reason_ for the powerful
smell of the male deer; and, after some hesitation, I have determined to
set it down here, for the reader to accept or reject, as he thinks
proper. I neither believe nor disbelieve it; for although I do not put
great faith in gaucho natural history, my own observations have not
infrequently confirmed statements of theirs, which a sceptical person
would have regarded as wild indeed. To give one instance: I heard a
gaucho relate that while out riding he had been pursued for a
considerable distance by a large spider; his hearers laughed at him for
a romancer; but as I myself had been attacked and pursued, both when on
foot and on horseback, by a large wolf-spider, common on the pampas, I
did not join in the laugh. They say that the effluvium of C. campestris
is abhorrent to snakes of all kinds, just as pyrethrum powder is to most
insects, and even go so far as to describe its effect as fatal to them;
according to this, the smell is therefore a protection to the deer. In
places where venomous snakes are extremely abundant, as in the Sierra
district on the southern pampas of Buenos Ayres, the gaucho frequently
ties a strip of the male deer's skin, which retains its powerful odour
for an indefinite time, round the neck of a valuable horse as a