i6o JUNGLE ISLAND 



with two soft-footed negro guides, and I did my 

 best to follow them noiselessly up the rocks of a 

 dry creek bed. 



Suddenly Blanco, who was leading, motioned 

 for me to come up with him very quietly. The 

 banks of the creek were nearly as high as our 

 chins. Feeding on the leaves at the level of our 

 eyes, I saw a great many animals that I thought 

 at first to be small brown, doglike monkeys with 

 long tails. When one looked in my direction his 

 long pointed nose and the gray markings about 

 his eyes told me that he was either a raccoon or 

 a relative of the family. Blanco called them 

 gotosolas. The usual name is coati (Fig. 69). 



When a white-and-black hawk flew into a near- 

 by tree, the coatis all scattered. Blanco told me 

 that the reason they were on the ground was 

 because the hawk was hunting them. 



The coatis themselves are hunters. Belt tells 

 of seeing packs of them hunting iguanas. Some 

 would climb the tree and chase the heavy iguana 

 so far out on a slender limb that he would fall 

 and be caught by the pack beneath. When 

 one coati went hunting by himself, he had a 

 much poorer chance of iguana for his dinner, 

 since the iguana could drop and climb another 

 tree before the coati could reach the ground 

 and be after him again. But even when he 

 lost one iguana after another, the coati would 

 keep patiently on his search, hoping, perhaps, 



