UP THE RIVER OF TAPIRS 133 



Many birds were around us; I saw some of them, and 

 Cherrie and Miller many, many more. They ranged from 

 party-colored macaws, green parrots, and big gregarious 

 cuckoos down to a brilliant green-and-chestnut kingfisher, 

 five and a quarter inches long, and a tiny orange-and-green 

 manakin, smaller than any bird I have ever seen except a 

 hummer. We also saw a bird that really was protectively 

 colored; a kind of whippoorwill which even the sharp-eyed 

 naturalists could only make out because it moved its head. 

 We saw orange-bellied squirrels with showy orange tails. 

 Lizards were common. We killed our first poisonous snake 

 (the second we had seen), an evil lance-headed jararaca 

 that was swimming the river. We also saw a black-and- 

 orange harmless snake, nearly eight feet long, which we 

 were told was akin to the mussurama; and various other 

 snakes. One day while paddling in a canoe on the river, 

 hoping that the dogs might drive a tapir to us, they drove 

 into the water a couple of small bush deer instead. There 

 was no point in shooting them; we caught them with ropes 

 thrown over their heads; for the naturalists needed them 

 as specimens, and all of us needed the meat. One of the 

 men was stung by a single big red maribundi wasp. For 

 twenty-four hours he was in great pain and incapacitated 

 for work. In a lagoon two of the dogs had the tips of their 

 tails bitten off by piranhas as they swam, and the ranch 

 hands told us that in this lagoon one of their hounds had 

 been torn to pieces and completely devoured by the raven- 

 ous fish. It was a further illustration of the uncertainty of 

 temper and behavior of these ferocious little monsters. In 

 other lagoons they had again and again left us and our 

 dogs unmolested. They vary locally in aggressiveness 



