The fox has many misdeeds on his conscience, but his conduct toward the badger is peculiarly indelicate. The fox is a skilful digger, and when he can not avoid it, he can hollow out a house with several rooms. The dwelling has numerous openings, both as a measure of prudence and of hygiene, for this arrangement enables the air to be renewed. He prepares several chambers side by side, one of which he uses for observation and to take his siesta in; a second as a sort of larder in which he piles up what he can not devour at once; a third in which the female brings forth and rears her young. But he does not hesitate to avoid this labor when possible. If he finds a rabbit warren he tries first to eat the inhabitants, and then, his mind cleared from this anxiety, arranges their domicile to his own taste, and comfortably installs himself in it. In South America, again, the Argentine fox frequently takes up permanent residence in a vizcachera, ejecting the rightful owners; he is so quiet and unassuming in his manners that the vizcachas become indifferent to his presence, but in spring the female fox will seize on the young vizcachas to feed her own young, and if she has eight or nine, the young of the whole village of vizcachas may be exterminated. The badger’s dwelling appears to the fox particularly enviable. In order to dislodge the proprietor he adopts the following plan: Knowing that the latter can tolerate no ordure near his home, he chooses as a place of retirement one of the passages which lead to the chamber of the peaceful recluse. He insists repeatedly, until at last the badger, insulted by this grossness, and suffocated by the odor, decides to move elsewhere and hollow a fresh palace. The fox is only waiting for this, and installs himself. The vizcacha (Lagostomus trichodactylus) is a large rodent inhabiting a vast extent of country in the pampas of La Plata, Patagonia, etc. Unlike most other burrowing species, the vizcacha prefers to work on open level spots. On the great grassy plains it is even able to make its own conditions, like the beaver, and is in this respect, and in its highly developed social instinct, among the two or three mammals which approach man, although only a rodent, and even in this order, according to Waterhouse, coming very low down by reason of its marsupial affinities.