130 Naturalist at Large 



he said to me, "I bet you don't know what those are." 

 I replied, "My General, you have lost your bet," and 

 proceeded to tell him. He was quite amused. But it was 

 by sheer chance that I happened to know, for to this day 

 we have never been able to get anything more than a 

 skull to represent this genus in the Museum in Cambridge. 

 The animal has a wide distribution but seems to be exces- 

 sively rare throughout its entire range. 



We at length drove on to Lake Valencia which I wanted 

 to see on account of its birds. They were interesting, but 

 as a show not up to those of Florida. We finally reached 

 Puerto Cabello, that famous harbor which was given its 

 name, the Port of the Hair, because it was so well pro- 

 tected that a ship could be moored with a thread. We 

 found Allison in port cruising frantically up and down in 

 the yacht's launch, passing back and forth along the water- 

 front holding a yellow flag in his hand. He had been in 

 the harbor for hours and in spite of frantic signalings had 

 been unable to get the attention of any officials to be for- 

 mally received. 



I went into the customhouse, for of course my bag- 

 gage had to be passed out of the country with a good deal 

 more in the way of inspection than when it came in. The 

 customs officer was sitting at a high desk writing indus- 

 triously in a ledger. I told him that I had been lunching 

 with the General at Maracay and that he had asked Dr. 

 Riquena to notify the port officials that we were not to 

 be interfered with in any way. The collector of the port 

 said that he had had no such news. I was too old a hand 

 to be much surprised, but I was somewhat incensed when 



