222 WANDERINGS IN SOUTH AMERICA. 



The wourali-poison seems to be the only thing that will 

 kill it quickly. On reference to a former part of these 

 wanderings, it will be seen that a poisoned arrow killed the 

 sloth in about ten minutes. 



So much for this harmless, unoffending animal. He 

 holds a conspicuous place in the catalogue of the animals 

 of the new world. Though naturalists have made no 

 mention of what follows, still it is not less true on that 

 account. The sloth is the only quadruped known, which 

 spends its whole life from the branch of a tree, suspended 

 by his feet. I have paid uncommon attention to him in 

 his native haunts. The monkey and squirrel will seize a 

 branch with their fore- feet, and pull themselves up, and 

 rest or run upon it; but the sloth, after seizing it, still 

 remains suspended, and suspended moves along under the 

 branch, till he can lay hold of another. Whenever I have 

 seen him in his native woods, whether at rest, or asleep, or 

 on his travels, I have always observed that he was suspended 

 from the branch of a tree. When his form and anatomy 

 are attentively considered, it will appear evident that the 

 sloth cannot be at ease in any situation, where his body 

 is higher, or above his feet. We will now take our leave 

 of him. 



In the far-extending wilds of Guiana, the traveller will 

 be astonished at the immense quantity of Ants which he 

 perceives on the ground and in the trees. They have nests 

 in the branches, four or five times as large as that of the 

 rook ; and they have a covered way from them to the ground. 

 In this covered way thousands are perpetually passing and 

 repassing ; and if you destroy part of it, they turn to, and 

 immediately repair it. 



Other species of ants again have no covered way ; but 

 travel, exposed to view, upon the surface of the earth. You 

 will sometimes see a string of these ants a mile long, each 



