ANIMAL MIGRATIONS 381 



food may be compared to that already noted of wild 

 turkeys ; for the principal subsistence of fish in the 

 Rio Negro is on the fruits of riparial trees, some of 

 which seem scarcely touched by either bird or 

 monkey. A small laurel-like bush (Caraipa lauri- 

 folia, S.) lines the banks in many places, and bears 

 damson-like drupes, which are the favourite food of 

 that delicious fish the Uaracii or Aracii. When the 

 ripe drupes are dropping into the water they attract 

 shoals of Uaracii. Then the fisherman stations his 

 canoe at dawn of day in the mouth of some still 

 igarape, overshaded by bushes of Uaracii-Tamacoari 

 (the native Indian name of the tree), and with his 

 arrows picks off the fish as they rise to snatch the 

 floating fruits. It ought to be mentioned that the 

 fish of the Negro, if much fewer, are some of them 

 perhaps superior in flavour to any Amazon fish, 

 whereof the Uaracii is an example, and the large 

 Pirahyba is another, the latter being so luscious 

 that it is difficult to know when one has had enough 

 of it, whereas the same or a very closely allied 

 species of the Amazon is often scarcely edible. 1 



I have, in what precedes, purposely avoided 

 speaking of the way in which animals prey on each 

 other, because the ultimate measure of the amount 

 of animal life must always depend on that of vege- 

 table life, and not because I shut my eyes to t he- 

 fact. 



CoNCU'Dixc RKMAKKS 



I leave these disjecta membra in the hands of 

 naturalists, hoping that they may find among them 



1 Fur further information on the fishes <>f the Kin Nei;r<> I iiui-t refer in 

 ?\Ir. Wallace's interesting account of that liver Travels, chaps. i\., \., anil 

 xvi.), and to Schomuui<;k's Fishes of Guiana. 



