296 THE LOWER AMAZONS. Chap. VII. 



head I saw raised above the herbage. The fooKsh Httle 

 brute approached quite close, and then the serpent 

 reared its tail slightly in a horizontal position and shook 

 its terrible rattle. It was many minutes before I could 

 get the dog away ; and this incident, as well as the one 

 already related, shows how slow the reptile is to make 

 the fatal spring. 



I was much annoyed, and at the same time amused, 

 with the Urubu vultures. The Portuguese call them 

 corvos or crows ; in colour and general appearance, they 

 somewhat resemble rooks, but they are much larger, 

 and have naked, black, wrinkled skin about their face 

 and throat. They assemble in great numbers in the 

 villages about the end of the wet season, and are then 

 ravenous with hunger. My cook could not leave the 

 open kitchen at the back of the house for a moment, 

 whilst the dinner was cooking, on account of their 

 thievish propensities. Some of them were always loiter- 

 ing about, watching their opportunity, and the instant 

 the kitchen was left unguarded, the bold marauders 

 marched in and lifted the lids of the saucepans with 

 their beaks to rob them of their contents. The boys of 

 the village lie in wait and shoot them with bow and 

 arrow ; and vultures have consequently acquired such a 

 dread of these weapons, that they may be often kept off 

 by hanging a bow from the nxfters of the kitchen. As 

 the dry season advances, the hosts of Urubus follow the 

 fishermen to the lakes, where they gorge themselves 

 with the offal of the fisheries. Towards February, they 

 return to the villages, and are then not nearly so ravenous 

 as before their summer trips. 



