FAUNAL CONDITIONS IN THE CANAL ZONE 



241 



young fruit district only recently made 

 accessible by high water, chose this 

 time to burn over some clearings and 

 we found that the smoke materially 

 interfered with our success. Cameras 

 with flash lights and bait were set out in 

 promising spots, lines of traps for 

 mammals were run daily, while the 

 jungle was hunted in hopes of shooting 

 specimens. 



It was at this spot that we made the 

 acquaintance of the largest of the Pana- 

 manian monkeys, the " black howlers." 

 Frequently their queer booming, roaring, 

 howl echoed through the jungle, a call 

 that carries for long distances. They 

 howl oftenest just before or dur- 

 ing a rain storm and the natives 

 thus look upon them as weather 

 prophets. Upon one occasion I 

 stood almost under some trees 

 through which a troop was 

 passing, while the first big pre- 

 liminary drops of a sudden 

 shower pattered upon the leaves 

 about me. The volume of 

 sound that issued from the black 

 shaggy throats was so great and 

 so suggestive of a large animal, 

 a lion for example, that I found 

 it hard to reconcile myself to the 

 actual facts. I felt a pang of 

 regret at silencing one of the 

 "howlers" but as a specimen 

 was needed I shot one of the 

 foremost and heard him crash 

 through the limbs to the ground. 

 Pangs of a more effective sort 

 were experienced when my na- 

 tive boy and I attempted to 

 retrieve the monkey, for he had 

 fallen underneath ^a bees' nest 

 the size of a bushel basket and 

 we found the nest too late to 

 avoid it. 



Other interesting mammals 

 encountered here were the 



pretty squirrel-like marmoset, the short- 

 haired anteater and several species of 

 opossum, while we were continually won- 

 dering at the \'ariety of the bird life and 

 the diversity of the bird songs and call- 

 notes. The noisy parrots that shouted 

 in the morning until the jungle rang 

 with their tumult, the grotesque toucans 

 which at times vied with the parrots, the 

 calling of the parrakeets and the peculiar 

 chorus-like calls of the chachalaca, or 

 "wild turkey," produced an impression 

 that must ever be associated with jungle 

 memories. At night mysterious noises 

 were heard from unknown sources and 

 one weird laughing call in particular 



The black howler, the largest of the Panamanian 

 monkeys, is looked upon by the natives as a weather 

 prophet, its loud, long and reverberating howl being 

 most frequently heard just preceding a heavy rain 



