THE SEA-SERPENTS OF SCIENCE. 123, 



of a brook, and followed its windings, terminating ultimately 

 in a morass after a course of from 700 to 1000 metres. The 

 breadth of the trenches was said to be about three metres. 

 Since that period the brook has flowed in the trench made 

 by the minhocao. The path of the animal lay generally 

 beneath the surface of the earth under the bed of the 

 stream; several' pine trees had been rooted up by its 

 passage. One of the trees from which the minhocao in 

 passing had torn off the bark and part of the wood, was 

 said to be still standing and visible last year. Hundreds of 

 people from Curitibanos and other places had come to see 

 the devastation caused by the minhocao, and supposed the 

 animal to be still living in the marshy pool, the waters of 

 which appeared at certain times to be suddenly and strangely 

 troubled. Indeed, on still nights a rumbling sound like 

 distant thunder and a slight movement of the earth was 

 sensible in the neighbouring dwellings. This story was told 

 to Herr Miiller by two eye-witnesses, Jose, son of old 

 Branco, and a stepson, who formerly lived in the same 

 house. Herr Miiller remarks that the appearance of the 

 minhocao is always supposed to presage a period of rainy 

 weather. 



" In the neighbourhood of the Rio dos Papagaios, in the 

 province of Parana, one evening in 1849 after a long course 

 of rainy weather, a sound was heard in the house of a 

 certain Joao de Deos, as if rain were again falling in a 

 wood hard by, but on looking out, the heavens were seen 

 to be bright with stars. On the following morning it was 

 discovered that a large piece of land on the further side of 

 a small hill had been entirely undermined, and was traversed 

 by deep trenches which led towards a bare open plateau 

 covered with stones, or what is called in this district a 

 ' legeado.' At this spot large heaps of clay turned up out 

 of the earth marked the onward course of the animal from 

 the legeado into the bed of a stream running into the 

 Papagaios. Three years after this place was visited by 

 Senhor Lebino Jose dos Santos, a wealthy proprietor, now 



