464 TROPICAL WILD LIFE IN BRITISH GUIANA 



Indians ; but he has declined several offers of money for the 

 folk-lore he can give. He is there to teach the Indians to 

 be Christians; not to waste his time in telling devil-stories. 

 He would be useful to a naturalist, for he has no objection 

 to discoursing about God's creatures. 



A smaller animal than the iworo, also diurnal and noc- 

 turnal, is the maikang, or savannah fox. A specimen brought 

 to me measured 2 feet from the nose to the root of the tail, 

 the tail was 1 foot long, rather bushy, and the animal's height 

 was 17 inches. A black line ran down the back, from the 

 neck to the root of the tail, and along the tail, irregularly. 

 The body was speckled burnt-sienna and greyish-cream, the 

 head being similarly colored, and the underparts were dirty 

 white. The nose was very pointed. The maikang is auda- 

 cious, coming into the village, in the daytime, in search of 

 fowls. It took a sitting hen from under om* house, having 

 to force its way through a kissing-gate in the stockade, which 

 enclosed the house. It was, probably the same maikang 

 which was found, soon after, as the day broke, in our veran- 

 dah, where it had come to enjoy some bananas. The fruit 

 had been brought in from tlie distant field the night before 

 and had been left upon the floor, to be hung the next day. 

 It is of interest to find two carnivorous animals partial to 

 fruit. There is, upon the savannahs, a bush, which bears a 

 pretty, red l)erry, which is called maikang-pimi-u, because 

 the maikang feeds u])on it. Pimi is the Makuchi name for 

 the small, red pepper. lu means food. Maikang-pepper- 

 food. During flood-time, the maikang were much in evi- 

 dence upon the hill, where the Mission stands. Its eerie cry, 

 like the long drawn-out wail of a person in agony, could 

 often be heard, as darkness fell. The maikang makes a hole, 

 generally in a mona, and, in this, it has its young. 



A still smaller animal, having a long tail and a pointed 

 snout, is tlie queer creature called, by the Indians, kuachi. 

 It is the coati, to which Colonel Roosevelt referred, in his 

 account to Scribner's of his travels in Brazil. The Indian 



