304 Ur Hancock on the Caymans, or 



where the Teri-teri-ou are said to be most common. This ac- 

 counts for the Ackawai and other tribes having borrowed their 

 name for the animal. 



The Mandavacas Uve on the Rio Negro and Cassiquiari or 

 Casicari. It is singular that there are no large species of cro- 

 codile inhabiting those rivers, although the alligator is numerous 

 there. They have not even a name for any other species. Mr 

 Humboldt must have been strangely misinformed, when he speaks 

 of the dangerous and ferocious crocodiles of the Cassiquiari ; no 

 species but the inoffensive alhgator inhabiting there. This ex- 

 ception is the more extraordinary, as most of the other great 

 rivers of Guiana, so far as I know, abound with the Cayman. 

 Perhaps it may be owing to the porpesses which are numerous 

 in the Cassiquiari and the Rio Negro. 



The Spaniards call one (the second here described) Cayman 

 Negro ; another of the same size they call C. amarilla, or yellow ; 

 and a smaller, which they say inhabits the Lagunes, is called 

 Baba or Babilla, of grey colour. 



The Cayman is in length eleven feet three and a half inches, 

 and in girth four feet. Teeth, thirty-six in the upper jaw, and 

 the same in the imder, not corresponding, but alternate ; fore 

 legs, fifteen inches long, with five toes, the two outer without 

 nails ; hind legs twenty-two inches, with four toes, three with 

 strong nails, the outer ones without any. The belly and under 

 jaw are white ; the rest of the body black. Many caymans are 

 killed for the sake of their teeth and fat, which lies in a deep 

 oblong mass on each side the tail, or along the posterior part of 

 the spine. The cayman runs fast in a straight direction, but 

 cannot turn quickly. It travels far over land at night, to re- 

 move to other waters, for which it instinctively directs its course 

 from great distances. In procuring its food, the cayman has the 

 sagacity to lay the Fortuga on its back to prevent its escape, if 

 not hungry. The large tigers (jaguar) fall sometimes a prey 

 to the cayman in the water, but generally conquer on land. , The 

 strength of the tiger is so great, that he lacerates and lays open 

 the side of the neck where the cayman is most vulnerable. The 

 battle between them when they meet on the land is said to be tre- 

 mendous. There the jaguar makes the attack ; and the contrary, 

 it* they meet in the water. As the cayman Ues basking his scaly 



