In the times of the Incas, the Puna chases were conducted on a much grander scale. Annually from 25,000 to 30,000 Indians assembled, who were obliged to drive all the wild animals from a circuit of more than a hundred miles into an enormous chacu. As the circle narrowed, the ranks of the Indians were doubled and trebled, so that no animal could escape. The pernicious quadrupeds, such as bears, cuguars, and foxes, were all killed, but only a limited number of stags, deer, vicuñas, and huanacus; for the provident Incas did not lose sight of the wants of futurity, and were more economical of the lives of animals than their brutal successors, the Christian Spaniards, were of the lives of men. In spite of the persecutions to which they are subject, not only from hunters but from the ravenous condor, who frequently robs them of their young, the vicuñas do not seem to diminish, and are often seen roaming about in large numbers--the inaccessible wilds to which they are able to retreat amply securing them against extermination. [Illustration: CHINCHILLA.] Besides these four remarkable Camelides, we find among the animals peculiar to the Puna the stag-like Tarush (_Cervus antisiensis_); the timid deer, who also descends from the high mountain-plains into the coast-valleys and the forest region; the Viscachas and the Chinchillas. The Peruvian Viscachas (_Lagidium peruanum_ and _pallipes_), live at an elevation of from 10,000 to 12,000 feet, between 33° and 18° S. lat., and resemble the rabbit in form and colour, but have shorter ears and a long rough tail. Their far is soft, but not nearly so fine as that of the near-related Chinchilla (_Chinchilla lanigera_). This little creature, which is somewhat larger than our squirrel, has large and brilliant eyes, an erect tail, strong bristles on the upper lip, and almost naked, rounded ears. It lives in burrows, feeding chiefly upon roots, and is found in such numbers in the Chilian Andes that its holes considerably increase the difficulty of travelling. The fur is too well known to require any further description. Where ruminants and rodents abound it may easily be imagined that beasts of prey will not be wanting. The cunning fox (_Canis Azaræ_) waylays both the chinchillas and the water-birds; and, impelled by hunger, the Puma, or American lion, ascends even to the borders of eternal snow in quest of the vicuña and the deer. But the monarch of the Puna is unquestionably the mighty condor, who, soaring over the highest peaks of the Andes, sees on one side the Pacific rolling its heavy breakers against the coast, and on the other the Marañon vanishing in the hazy distance of the primitive forest.