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478 S.
but they will jump as high as 25 feet and will scamper about to exercise with the speed of racing midget autos. Treadmills help them get enough activity. Their teeth require special treatment, too, because they would grow so long the animal would be unable to eat unless an electric emery wheel were used to shorten teeth — or a small cement stone provided for them to gnaw as a puppy gnaws an old slipper.
Chinchillas are not noisy. When frightened they either squeal or bark: and when happy, which is by far the greatest part of their lives, they emit clucking sounds similar to those of a baby who has just been fed.
AT PRESENT breeders are selling only pelts from animals who die or must be killed because of accidental injuries. To do otherwise would be rather like kiUing a goose laying golden eggs.
Pelts bring about fifty dollars each, while a live pair costs around $1,650. It takes up to 125 skins to complete a coat or wrap, depending upon the length required. Only a few skins are yet to be had. Prior to Chapman's attempt to domesticate these animals, their pelts brought from $25 to $350.
Their fur is the warmest and densest yet discovered. Where other fur has but a single hair to each root, a chinchilla sprouts about 80. This is so delicate that you cannot feel a single strand with your fingers, although it will be long enough to tie into several knots. It is ten times finer than the web of a spider!
Because of the rarity of the fur, only about 25 women own chinchilla wraps. All such owners have the right
to belong to the Chinchilla Club. Some of the members are: Mary Pickford, Hedy Lamarr, Lily Pons, Queen Elisabeth of England, Mrs. William Lehman, Mrs. Randolph Hearst, Mrs. William K. Vanderbilt, Mrs. Jay O'Brien, Mrs. Frank Himber, Mrs. Cornelius Vanderbilt and Mrs. James W. Corrigan.
Besides these, there are three coats often used in films and for display owned by I. J. Fox of New York City, Willard George of Los Angeles and Esther Dorothy, Inc., of Boston, all furriers willing to invest in an article of such attractiveness to women.
Today's chinchilla industry has been estimated at over $20,000,000— with the biggest ranch belonging to the Chapman family, of course. The number of progeny can only be estimated — yet they all have as ancestors those less-than-a-dozen animals Chapman transplanted with such difficulty from their native Andes mountains to warmer quarters in Los Angeles. Because they took kindly to this change, they are now scattered in 313 ranches which dot the United States and Canada. Although all the chinchillas now go on multiplying with gratifying regularity, it will be years before their owners will be willing to sell pelts instead of live pairs. That's why fur dealers all but tear their hair if you ask them for a chinchilla garment. They know that they cannot promise delivery; and it never is any fun to lose an order costing a fortune.
We owe the survival of these loveliest furbearers to domestic breeding. Without it, they would have disap' peared like so many other valuable species wiped out by greedy hunters.