42 THE AMERICAN MUSEUM JOURNAL 
that there is a man-eating fish of this 
type in the Amazon. 
One day when we were going down the 
Unknown River Mr. Cherrie and I in 
the same canoe, we saw a flying fish. 
Of course everyone knows about the 
flying fish on the ocean but I had no 
idea there were flying fish on the South 
American streams. I very much wish 
that some ichthy- 
ologist would go 
down to South 
America and come 
back with not only 
a collection of the 
fishes but also full 
notes on their life 
histories. 
We did not see 
very many snakes, 
I suppose only 
about twenty ven- 
The 
most venomous are 
those 
akin to our rattle- 
omous ones. 
somewhat 
snakes but with no 
rattles. One of the 
most common is 
the 
known 
jararaca, 
in Marti- 
nique as the fer-de- 
One of the 
biggest is called the 
lance. 
to develop enemies to the snakes them- 
selves. Such an enemy is this mus- 
surama which must be like our king 
snake — but larger. The king snake is 
a particularly pleasant snake; it is 
friendly toward mankind, not poisonous 
and can be handled freely. The scien- 
tists at the laboratory brought cut a big 
good-natured mussurama which I held 
between my arm 
and coat.» Then 
they brought out 
a fairly large fer- 
de-lance about nine 
inches shorter than 
the mussurama and 
warning me to keep 
away, put it on the 
table. Then they 
told me to put my 
snake where it 
could get at the 
fer-de-lance. I put 
down my snake on 
the table and it 
glided up toward 
the coiled fer-de- 
lance. My snake 
was perfectly free 
from excitement 
and I did not sup- 
pose it meant to do 
anything, that it 
was 
bushmaster and at- 
tains a length of 
about ten feet. 
These snakes are 
Courtesy of Charles Scribner's Sons 
Boy with parakeet and young coati. Para- 
keets are attractive but noisy little birds flying 
to and fro in the tops of palms. Coatis in 
jungle trees look like reddish lanky raccoons 
and fight savagely with both teeth and claws 
not hungry. 
It put its “nose” 
against the body of 
the fer-de-lance and 
moved toward the 
very poisonous and 
very dangerous. The mussurama is 
another South American snake, and it 
lives on poisonous snakes. It habitually 
kills and eats these dangerous reptiles, 
its most common prey being the jararaca. 
I saw the feat performed at a laboratory 
where poisonous snakes are being studied 
to secure antidotes to the poisons and 
head. The fer-de- 
lance’s temper was aroused and it coiled 
and struck. The return blow was so quick 
that I could not see just what happened. 
The mussurama had the fer-de-lance by 
the lower jaw, the mouth wide open. 
The latter struck once again. After that 
it made no further effort to defend itself 
in any way. The poisonous snake is a 
