Also 8 viscacho, 8–9 viscaccia, 9 vizcacha, vischacha. [a. Sp. viscacha (also biscacha BISCACHA), ad. Quichuan (h)uiscacha. Hence also F. viscaque.] One or other of two large burrowing rodents of South America, related to the chinchilla.
a. The Lagidium cuvierii, inhabiting the upper Andes from Chili to Ecuador; the Alpine viscacha.
1604. E. G[rimstone], D’Acosta’s Hist. Indies, IV. xxxviii. 314. There are other small animalles which they call Viscachas, and are like to hares, although they be bigger.
1781. Pennant, Hist. Quadrup., II. 376. Allied to this [Cape Hare] seems the Viscachos, or Viscachas, mentioned by Acosta and Feuillée, in their accounts of Peru.
1801. Shaw, Gen. Zool., II. I. 209. Viscaccia.… This species is said to have the general appearance of a Rabbet.
1811. W. Walton, Peruv. Sheep, 175. They afford furs and ornamental skins,… particularly the viscacha, which is a species of rabbit.
1849. Sk. Nat. Hist., Mammalia, IV. 126. The general colour of the viscacha of the western acclivities of the Peruvian Andes … is grayish ash, clouded here and there with a tint of brown.
1879. E. P. Wright, Animal Life (Cassell), 196. The Alpine Viscacha (Lagidium cuvierii) inhabits the lofty Andes of Chili, Bolivia, and Peru.
b. The Lagostomus trichodactylus of the southern Argentine pampas.
1836. Partington’s Brit. Cycl. Nat. Hist., II. 26. The Viscacha (Lagostomus trichodactylus) is about the size of a rabbit.
1855. Orr’s Circ. Sci., Org. Nat., III. 464. The Viscacha … inhabits the great plains of Buenos Ayres, where it digs burrows for itself.
c. 1882. Cassell’s Nat. Hist., III. 138. The Viscacha lives on the Pampas from Buenos Ayres to the borders of Patagonia.
So Viscache. rare–1.
1847–9. Todd’s Cycl. Anat., IV. I. 373. In the viscache the squamous portion of the temporal bone is … deeply indented.
