Eigenmann: The Serrasalmin.b and Mylin^i:. 233 



his tongue. Such a hemorrhage followed that his life was saved with 

 the utmost difficulty. 



"On another occasion a member of the party, a brother of the 

 Lieutenant Barbosa who was with us, was off by himself on a mule. 

 The mule came into camp alone. Following his back track, they 

 came to a ford, where in the water they found the skeleton of the 

 dead man, his clothes uninjured, but every particle of flesh stripped 

 from his bones. Whether he had drowned, and the fishes had then 

 eaten his body, or whether they had killed him it was impossible to 

 say. They had not hurt the clothes, getting in under them, which 

 made it seem likely that there had been no struggle. 



"These man-eating fish are a veritable scourge in the waters they 

 frequent. But it must not be understood by this that the piranhas — 

 or, for the matter of that, the new-world caymans and crocodiles — 

 ever become such dreaded foes of man as for instance the man-eating 

 crocodiles of xA.frica. Accidents occur, and there are certain places 

 where swimming and bathing are dangerous; but in most places 

 the people swim freely, although they are usually careful to find spots 

 they believe safe or else to keep together and make a splashing in 

 the water." (Extracted from a letter published in various daily 

 papers, 1914.) 



John D. Haseman, on the labels accompanying specimens collected 

 for the Carnegie Museum, states that one of the specimens of 

 Pygocentrus piraya from the Rio San Francisco, had bitten him on 

 the thumb, and that another specimen of Rooseveltiella nattereri nearly 

 severed one of his fingers. I dragged nets, and otherwise caught many 

 pirayas in Guiana, in a region where they are reported as being very 

 bad, without any mishap either to myself or to any of my assistants, 

 but I lost numerous hooks, which were neatly severed by the saw- 

 teeth of some species of piraya. 



The Mylinae have two series of teeth in the front of the upper jaw 

 and mostly use vegetable food. Some of them browse on the vege- 

 tation on the rocks, especially about rapids, and have the front 

 teeth developed as incisors; Myloplus micans is one of these. Others 

 have molars developed, and feed in large part on fruits, which drop 

 into the rivers. 



Different species of the Mylinae vary from small, thin, pompano- 

 shaped fishes, with prolonged dorsal and anal fins and a weight, when 

 full sized, of a few ounces, to large, heavy species, shaped like the 



