46 BIG GAME FIELDS 



among poets, but to my mind none but a student 

 of nature can fully appreciate a landscape. The 

 painter sees the patches of color in the flowers, 

 trees and river; but the naturalist recognizes the 

 objects which make up the scene and can see a 

 truer and infinitely more interesting picture. In 

 the soft soil at the edge of the stream he recog- 

 nizes the roundish footprints of the jaguar, and 

 pictures the great cat stepping lightly as the fall 

 of snow before him. To one side, and within the 

 shadows of a great buttressed tree, the jaguar 

 flattens, and becomes to all appearances a part 

 of the uneven ground, for he has suddenly dis- 

 covered a likely meal near by a peccary, just 

 tw r enty feet away, is enjoying her evening fare 

 as she quietly munches the oily kernel of the 

 fallen nuts from the saouari tree. Then some- 

 thing from somewhere pounces upon the unsus- 

 pecting pig, and in spite of her struggles, of 

 which the ground about gives evidence, she is 

 killed, and what the big cat leaves undevoured is 

 soon obliterated by the many ants and termites. 

 Here, on the sand, are the delicate hoof-marks 

 of the peccary, and an occasional bone is found, 

 while the little bristles are littered all about. It 

 is with the aid of such signs as these that the 

 naturalist reads the ways of the wild folks. 



