Weird Tales/Volume 2/Issue 2/Rare Animals Discovered on Dipsomania Isle

Rare Animals Discovered on Dipsomania Isle

Doctor Wilfred H. Osgood, big game hunter and chief curator of zoology of the Field Museum of Natural History, Chicago, has just returned from an extensive expedition through South America, bringing with him 2,000 species of wild animal and bird life, some so rare that their names are still to be discovered.

Among the oddities of the collection are the pudu, South American for small deer; the huillin, a strange species of otter; the coypu, which is a large water rat; the huemul, another type of South American deer; the guanuoo, or wild camel; nandu, which means ostrich, and the viecacha, or another species of rat that resembles a rabbit.

The bulk of the collection, according to Dr. Osgood, was found on the isolated Island of Chiloe, which is about the size of Vancouver and les off the southern coast of Chile. It is populated by a tribe of Indians, numbering about 100,000, whose chief occupation, Dr. Osgood said, is getting drunk. They are badly in need of the Volstead act and it is said that their capacity for alcohol is unsurpassed anywhere in the world.