246 ‘The Naturalist in Nicaragua 
uneatable so soon as I made his acquaintance and saw the 
happy sense of security with which he hopped about. I took 
a few specimens home with me, and tried my fowls and ducks 
with them, but none would touchthem. At last, by throwing 
down pieces of meat, for which there was a great competition 
amongst them, I managed to entice a young duck into snatch- 
ing up one of the little frogs. Instead of swallowing it, 
however, it instantly threw it out of its mouth, and went 
about jerking its head as if trying to throw off some un- 
pleasant taste.? 
After travelling three leagues beyond Teustepe, we reached, 
near dusk, a small house by the roadside, at which had put 
up for the night a party of muleteers, with their mules and 
cargoes. Our beasts were too tired to go further, so we 
determined to take our chance of finding room for our 
hammocks. Soon after we alighted, as I sat on a stone 
near the door of the house, a gun went off close to us, and 
my horse sprang forward, nearly upon me. We soon found 
it was our own gun, which had been given to Rito to carry. 
He had strapped it behind his saddle, and one of the other 
mules had come up, rubbed against it, and let it off. The 
poor horse was only four feet from the muzzle, and the 
contents were lodged in its loin. A large wound was made 
from which the blood flowed in a great stream, until Velas- 
quez got some burnt cloth and stanched it. Fortunately 
the charge in the gun was a very light one, and no vital 
part was touched. We arranged with the muleteers to 
take our cargo to Juigalpa for us, and determined to leave 
Rito behind to lead the horse gently to Pital. The horse, 
which was a very good one, ultimately recovered. 
At this house the woman had eight children, the eldest, 
I think, not more than twelve years of age. The man who 
passed as her husband was the father of the youngest only. 
Amongst the lower classes of Nicaragua men and women 
often change their mates. In such cases the children remain 
with the mother, and take their surname from her. Baptism 
is considered an indispensable rite, but the marriage ceremony 
is often dispensed with; and I did not notice that those 
1 Probably the strongly contrasted colours of the spotted salamander 
of Southern Europe and the warning noise made by the rattlesnake 
may be useful in a similar manner, as has been suggested by Darwin. 
