168 THROUGH THE BRAZILIAN WILDERNESS 



after it had been made by one of the true vampires they 

 would lap the flowing blood and enlarge the wound. 

 South America makes up for its lack, relatively to Africa 

 and India, of large man-eating carnivores by the extraor- 

 dinary ferocity or bloodthirstiness of certain small crea- 

 tures of which the kinsfolk elsewhere are harmless. It is 

 only here that fish no bigger than trout kill swimmers, and 

 bats the size of the ordinary "flittermice" of the north- 

 ern hemisphere drain the life-blood of big beasts and of 

 man himself. 



There was not much large mammalian life in the neigh- 

 borhood. Kermit hunted industriously and brought in an 

 occasional armadillo, coati, or agouti for the naturalists. 

 Miller trapped rats and a queer opossum new to the col- 

 lection. Cherrie got many birds. Cherrie and Miller 

 skinned their specimens in a little open hut or shed. Moses 

 the small pet owl, sat on a cross-bar overhead, an inter- 

 ested spectator, and chuckled whenever he was petted. 

 Two wrens, who bred just outside the hut, were much 

 excited by the presence of Moses, and paid him visits of 

 noisy unfriendliness. The little white-throated sparrows 

 came familiarly about the palm cabins and whitewashed 

 houses and trilled on the rooftrees. It was a simple song, 

 with just a hint of our northern whitethroat's sweet and 

 plaintive melody, and of the opening bars of our song- 

 sparrow's pleasant, homely lay. It brought back dear 

 memories of glorious April mornings on Long Island, when 

 through the singing of robin and song-sparrow comes the 

 piercing cadence of the meadow-lark; and of the far north- 

 land woods in June, fragrant with the breath of pine and 

 balsam-fir, where sweetheart sparrows sing from wet spruce 



