Photo by Maza 
Courtesy of Charles Scribner's Sons 
A non-poisonous snake, the mussurama, swallowing the deadly fer-de-lance after having killed it. 
The danger from poisonous snakes in South America is very slight, ‘“much less than the danger of being 
run down by an automobile at home.”’ 
certain spot in the river went into the 
water and one of these fishes bit off his 
little toe. 
Unknown River, Mr. Cherrie went into 
the water thinking he could take his 
On another occasion on the 
bath right near shore and one of the fish 
bit a piece out of his leg. 
One of the most extraordinary things 
we saw was this. On one occasion one 
of us shot a crocodile. It rushed back 
into the water. The fish attacked it at 
once and they drove that crocodile out 
of the water back to the men on the bank. 
It was less afraid of the men than of the 
fish. 
We were interested one day in a 
certain big catfisu, like any other big 
catfish except that it had a monkey 
inside of it. I had never heard that a 
catfish could catch monkeys but it 
proved to be a fact. 
at the 
The catfish lives 
of the water. The 
monkeys come down on the ends of 
branches to drink and it seems to be no 
bottom 
uncommon thing for the fish to come 
to the surface and attack the monkey as 
it stoops to drink. Our Brazilian friends 
told us that in the Amazon there is a 
gigantic catfish nine feet long. The 
natives are more afraid of it than of the 
crocodile because the crocodile can be 
seen but the 
too late. 
‘atfish is never seen until 
In the villages, poles are 
stacked in the water so that women can 
get their jars filled with water, these 
stockades of poles keeping out the giant 
crocodile and catfish. I had never seen 
in any book any allusions to the fact 
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