ANNOTATED LIST OF THE SPECIES 243 
On pulling seines, it was necessary to take the pavas out as quickly as possible 
before other fishes, to prevent their eating their way out of the seine in the direc- 
tion of the water, and even then it was impossible to prevent their damaging the 
fabric. Hook and line fishing was almost as difficult because of their voracious 
appetite for bait, so that they generally strike before other desired species have a 
chance, or devour the others before they can be pulled out. Furthermore it is 
necessary to fish with large hooks, for otherwise the pana will either bite your line, 
your leader, or your hook in two as a part of the day’s work. Hooks lost and 
leaders bitten off were the rule rather than the exception. The numbers of speci- 
mens reported above is a very inadequate expression of the abundance of specimens 
taken and shared with helpers for gastronomic purposes. 
According to Humboldt (Obs. Zool. II, 174) the earliest account of these fishes 
is that of Fray Pedro Simon, who describes among the loot taken from an Indian 
village garments made in the form of trousers of a coarse net tied in knots as a 
safeguard against caribes while fishing. Humboldt also relates that a young 
Indian, inspecting a drawing of the caribe, pointed out that the constellation of the 
Southern Cross was called by the name of the fish. Schomburgk tells of seeing three 
young capybara with toes amputated by the fish, and waterfowl walking about on 
stumps of feet. 
Accounts like the above run through both the scientific and the popular litera- 
ture. Domville-Fife calls them river shark, and Dyott the vultures of the river. 
But the imagination of a Duguid paints it in colors most vividly of all writers: 
The alligator was... ‘‘dangled overboard with the tail cut off. The dark 
water kindled, a troubled cloud grew to immense proportions, and a silver terror 
shone beneath the surface. Occasionally there was a bright flash of scales and a 
flourish of fins....An air of concealed energy, horrible and intense, kept our eyes 
on the jerking rope . . . if ever a liquid may be said to heave, the river Paraguay did 
that afternoon....At last we could bear it no longer. We hauled with all our 
strength, and as the body slithered over the side, a gout of water shot into the 
engine. Queer, flapping noises came from the interior, and a deep-bellied fish 
fluttered on the floor-boards.”’ 
Contrast with this the reaction of Haseman, who simply recorded on his label 
of a Pygocentrus and put it in alcohol with the specimen ‘“‘bit my thumb”’, and on 
another, “nearly severed finger.”’ 
The biting powers and destruction of fish-hooks are widely commented upon 
(Dyott, 158; Beebe, 359; Woodroffe, 95; Paez, 420). Whitney describes the mouth- 
ful of ‘‘canine” teeth. Lange (1912, 208) tells of one biting a piece out of a steering 
paddle. The dangers of entering streams are discussed by many writers (Domville- 
Fife, 237; Koebel, 1915, 233; im Thurn, 137; Guenther, 175). Grubb (page 9) says 
towing a canoe is dangerous work on their account. Cherrie (page 71) alludes to 
their threat to wounded cattle. Many writers relay to us the story of the attrac- 
tion of blood of wounded animals, misleading Whitney to say the piranha “eats 
blood, not flesh”. That blood does serve as an attraction 1s well shown by the great 
numbers in which I found them in a drainage ditch leading from the slaughter-house 
at Manaos. 
