40 THE AMERICAN MUSEUM JOURNAL 
leaf ant which doesn’t eat a man but 
devours his possessions instead. I met 
with a tragedy one night myself. We 
had come down the Unknown River and 
had lost two or three canoes and had to 
portage whatever we had over the 
Photo by Miller 
The caymans, or jacarés, of the Paraguay 
region are not ordinarily dangerous to man, al- 
though they sometimes become man-eaters 
mountain. We had to throw away 
everything that was not absolutely 
necessary. I reduced my own baggage 
to one change of clothing. We got into 
camp late and Cherrie and I had our 
two cots close together and did not get 
the fly up until after dark. My helmet 
had an inside lining of green and I had 
worn a red handkerchief around my 
neck. At night I put my spectacles 
and the handkerchief in the hat. The 
next morning I looked out of bed pre- 
paring to get my spectacles. 
red and green line. 
I saw a 
It was moving. 
There was a procession of these leaf- 
bearing ants with sections of my hand- 
kerchief and hat. I had had one spare 
pair of socks and one spare set of under- 
clothing and I needed them both. By 
morning I had part of one sock and the 
leg and waistband of the underwear and 
that was all. It is amusing to look back 
at but it was not amusing at the time. 
The most interesting fish that we 
became acquainted with was called the 
“cannibal fish,” the “man-eating fish.” 
It is about the size of our shad with a 
heavily undershot jaw and very sharp 
teeth. So far as I know, it is the only 
fish in the world that attacks singly or 
in shoals animals much larger than itself. 
Cannibal fishes swarm in most of the 
rivers of the region we passed through, 
in most places not very dangerous, in 
others having the custom of attacking 
man or animals, so that it is dangerous 
for anyone to go into the water. Blood 
maddens them. If a duck is shot, they 
will pull it to pieces in a very few min- 
utes. 
This side of Corumba a boy who had 
been in swimming was attacked in mid- 
stream by these fishes and before relief 
could get to him, he had not only been 
killed but half eaten. "Two members of 
our party suffered from them. Colonel 
Rondon after carefully examining a 
