FISHES OF WESTERN SOUTH AMERICA 
tion, and ought therefore to respond in a similar way. It was disconcerting 
to cruise (in a motor launch kindly loaned by an American Gun Club at La 
Fundicién) among the reedy embayments and lagoons, seeing vast numbers of 
fish in clear water, unable to interest them in hook and line, unable to manipu- 
late a seine, or to dynamite successfully, and the fish always out of reach of a 
dipnet. The Peruvian came to the rescue. With a hardihood inherent in 
the dwellers of the bleak pampas he stepped into the water to his thighs, sup- 
porting his weight on the rhizomes and roots of plants. Here he searched 
among stems for the fishes, and found them. 
Very large frogs, Cyclorhamphus culeus Garman |Telmatobius culeus| were 
found fairly abundant in the lake and its tributaries. They were much para- 
sitized, especially with small Cestodes. .. . 
The marshes and reedy islands surrounding Lake Junin harbor a multitude 
of birds, especially ducks, coots and grebes. Seldom may one look out upon 
the lake without sighting the smoke of fires in the bulrushes employed by the 
Indians to reveal the nests of birds. The eggs are a highly prized addition 
to the scanty diet, though scorched by the fire or in a state of partial incubation. 
Six weeks were spent upon the Huallaga river and some of its affluents. 
The highway from Cerro de Pasco to Hudnuco follows the river from its origin, 
a group of springs below Cerro at 14000 feet. Between Cerro and Hudnuco, 
a distance of seventy miles, both river and road descend to an elevation of 6000 
feet. In its upper course the river is mostly a series of rapids. No fish were 
encountered above Ambo at an elevation of probably 7500. They are said 
to occur at San Rafael during the lower stages of the river. This village has 
an elevation of 9000 or more. At Husnuco several species occur. 
Collecting was continued seventy miles below Hudanuco—as far as the Ca- 
yumba rapids, at 1800 or 2000 feet. These constitute an effective barrier 
to the tropical fishes of the lower courses of the Huallaga. Not more than six 
species occur [immediately] above the rapids. A native river man was able 
to enumerate and describe thirty-six species occurring from Cayumba to 
Tingo Maria, the ensuing forty miles. . . . 
On the ridge of Punta de Esperanza, altitude 9000 feet, and thirty miles 
northeast of Hudnuco, the trail abruptly enters the tropical forest, which 
from this point on entirely envelopes the mountains. On the forested east 
slope the rainy season was well under way, in sharpest contrast with the barren 
west slope and ranges back of it. 
Comparatively few of the mountain slopes have been cleared and placed 
under cultivation (chiefly to coca). At San Juan, one of the estates of Dr. 
Augusto Durand, I was hospitably sheltered for ten days while engaged in 
collecting the parasites of tropical birds. 
.. work was begun in southern Peru in mid-November. The ensuing four 
months were devoted to the Titicaca-Poop6é basin of Peru, Bolivia, and 
Northern Chile. 
... For want of riding animals four trips were taken on foot, aggregating 200 
miles, in order to reach some of the rivers and lakes of the Titicaca-Poopo 
Valley. The first trip was from Puno to Yunguyo, paralleling the shore of 
Lake Titicaca. ...The second trip extended from the port of Moho, at the 
northeast corner of the lake, northwestward to Tirapata.... Laguna Salinas 
is too saline for fishes. In faet nothing living was found in it except certain 
phyllopod crustacea, Artemia salina (reported for the first time from the 
continent, though found in all other continents). These were very abundant, 
and in all stages of development simultaneously. Flamingoes were feeding 
constantly in the lake. 
