ROOSEVELT-RONDON SCIENTIFIC EXPEDITION 39 
average of about a mile and a half a day 
and toward the end we were not eating 
any more than was necessary and that 
The 
parrots were pretty good when they were 
not tough but I can assure Mr. Horna- 
day that he could leave me alone in the 
monkey cage at the New York Zodlogical 
was largely monkey and parrot. 
Gardens with perfect safety. 
Both of the naturalists who were with 
me and I myself were interested pri- 
marily in mammalogy and ornithology. 
We were not entomologists and studied 
only those insects that forced themselves 
There were two 
or three types that were welcome. The 
butterflies were really wonderful. I 
shall never forget the spectacle in certain 
upon our attention. 
places on the Unknown River where great 
azure blue but- 
terflies would fly 
about up and 
down through the 
glade or over the 
river. Some of 
the noises made 
by insects were ex- 
traordinary. One 
insect similar to a 
katydid made a 
noise that ended 
with a sound like 
a steamboat whis- 
tle. 
We found the 
mosquitoes badin 
only two or three 
places. On the 
Paraguay marsh- 
es there were 
practically no 
mosquitoes. In 
that great marsh 
country where I 
should suppose 
mosquitoes would 
swarm, there were 
Man-eating fish, piranha. 
tively to Africa and India, of large man-eating carnivores by the extraordi- 
nary ferocity or bloodthirstiness of certain small creatures of which the kins- 
folk elsewhere are harmless. 
kill swimmers, and bats the size of the ordinary ‘ flittermice’ of the northern 
hemisphere drain the life-blood of big beasts and of man himself.’’ 
Our trouble was chiefly 
These little flies were at 
We had to 
wear gauntlets and helmets and we had 
scarcely any. 
with gnats. 
times a serious nuisance. 
to tie the bottom of our trouser legs. 
When we stopped on one occasion to 
build canoes, two or three of our cam- 
aradas were so crippled with the bites of 
the gnats that they could hardly walk. 
The wasps and stinging bees were also 
very obnoxious and at times fairly dan- 
gerous. ‘There were ants we called for- 
aging ants that moved in dense columns 
and killed every living thing that could 
not get out of the way. If an animal is 
picketed in the line of march of these 
foraging ants, they are likely to kill it in 
short time. 
There is also a peculiar ant called the 
Photo by Harper 
Courtesy of Charles Scribner's Sons 
“ South America makes up for its lack, rela- 
It is only here that fish no bigger than trout 
