A NATURALIST IN BRAZIL 



most part rodents — do not come out of hiding until the night has 

 fallen; whereas the non-venomous snakes hunt their prey — frogs 

 and lizards — in the daytime. The birds are most lively and con- 

 spicuous in the morning ; in the heat of noon many of the insects 

 become active; the lizards are most vivacious when the sun is at 

 its hottest, and the Jacares too, like all the crocodiles, first come 

 ashore when they can bask in the vertical rays of the sun. For these 

 creatures, moreover, the heat of noon is a protection against their 

 arch-enemy man, who at this hour is reluctant to leave the shelter 

 of his house. 



From the windy heights to the sub-soil, every level has its in- 

 habitants. Far overhead the Brazilian vultures, the Urubiis, hover 

 all day, scanning the widest possible area for signs of carrion. Below 

 them is the level of the swallows, hunting the insects on which they 

 live ; lower still the Humming-birds flit round the flowering shrubs. 

 All these are birds which pass the whole day without once alighting 

 on the ground, save for exceptional reasons. Of the loveliest Brazilian 

 butterflies, the metallic-blue Morphidae, one species, the Menelaus, 

 flies low and quickly along the green paths of the Tijuca forest; 

 another, the Anaxibia, flies at a height of thirty feet, floating along 

 in majestic tranquillity, for at that height enemies are rare. 



Even the depths of the soil are, so to speak, divided into stories. 

 Immediately under the surface crawl the millipedes and centipedes, 

 which live on the mouldering leaves that lie on the ground. Beneath 

 them are the burrows of the mole-crickets, which graze upon the 

 roots of plants, as do the grubs of various beetles. The "two-headed 

 snakes," which are really lizards, and of which I shall speak in 

 Chapter XIX, likewise burrow into the soil. They are hunted by 

 the black, red and yellow coral-snakes. There are no moles in 

 Brazil, so the armadillos have to attend to the business of keeping 

 down the grubs. 



Nature, then, acts like a wise agriculturalist, who so distributes 

 his fields among his workers that each can exploit his allotted area 

 without disturbing the others. Even the most out-of-the-way spots 

 are not forgotten. We have already seen that in the water which 

 the Bromelias retain between their leaf-insertions a whole series of 

 aquatic creatures contrives to exist. Even temporary accumulations 

 of water are utilized. Liiderwaldt found in the water contained by 

 the still unfolded leaves of the Heliconia a large, light-brown slug 

 and several small water-beetles. When the leaves unfold the water 

 is spilt, and the inhabitants must retire to other and younger leaves. 

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