A NATURALIST IN BRAZIL 



Is aquatic, living on fish and aquatic insects. There is a whole series 

 of terrestrial forms — the Mucuras, Quicas, Chichicas, Catitas — which 

 range from the size of a marten to that of a shrew-mouse (Plate 27). 

 Their naked tails remind one of rats, and some are even described 

 as marsupial rats, but as a matter of fact, their tails are adapted to 

 an arboreal life. With them the animals grip the branches, let their 

 bodies hang downwards, seize the next branch with their forefeet, 

 and so progress at a rapid pace. On level ground most of them move 

 but slowly, but among the branches they are extremely nimble, as 

 they are able to support themselves with the opposed thumbs of the 

 hindfeet. If they are caught, they try to scare the enemy by sham- 

 ming dead and emitting a noxious odour; they are able, however, 

 to bite severely with their needle-sharp teeth. 



Although the marsupials of Brazil are nocturnal animals, anyone 

 who has spent a little time in the country will have seen the larger 

 forms, known in Amazonas as Mucura, in the North-east as Timbu, 

 in the South as Gamba, and in the Argentine as Comadreja ; or he 

 may have encountered a poultry-farmer who has told him, with 

 indignation, how his hen-roosts have once more been visited by the 

 nocturnal robbers. 



In the convent garden of Olinda I made the acquaintance of the 

 Timbus, of which a whole family was captured one by one. The 

 mother took refuge in a hole in the wall. I made a noose, laid this 

 about her head with the help of a stick, and drew hex out into a cage 

 that was held before the hole. I kept her for some weeks, and the 

 young ones as well, and then released them. At first the captive 

 shammed dead, imitating a dead animal so thoroughly that she even 

 retracted her lips from her half-open mouth, thus assuming the 

 suffering expression of death. Later she saved herself the trouble of 

 this performance, but showed her teeth at once if anything displeased 

 her, hissing like a snake. Almost directly after I had caught her she 

 ate half a banana, and resigned herself completely to her fate, except 

 that she paced up and down her cage at night. But she showed no 

 attachment to her captor, and being slow and lethargic was not 

 very attractive. The marsupials betray their position at the very 

 bottom of the mammalian order by the fact that the temperature 

 of their blood is not so uniformly high as in the higher mammals ; 

 which accounts for their lethargic character. 



The next group of the lower mammals which invaded South 

 168 



