CHAPTER III. 



Discovery of a large Coulacanara snake. — ^A Busli-master. — Stag swallowed 

 by a Boa.- — Negroes and the snake. — Arrangements for the attack. — 

 The snake struck. — Carrying off the enemy. — A snake in a bag. — An 

 unquiet night. — Dissection of the snake. — Daddy Quashi and his dread 

 of snakes. — Capture of a Coulacanara. — Vultures and their food. — 

 Habits of Vultures. — The Aura vulture. — Black vultures. — Severe 

 blisters. — An inquisitive Jaguar. — Fish .shooting. — Goatsuckers and 

 Campanero. 



Let us now return to natural history. There was a 

 person making shingles, with twenty or thirty negroes, 

 not far from Mibiri-hill. I had offered a reward to any of 

 them who would find a good-sized snake in the forest, and 

 come and let me know where it was. Often had these 

 negroes looked for a large snake, and as often been dis- 

 appointed. 



One Sunday morning I met one of them in the forest, 

 and asked him whicli way he was going : he said he was 

 going towards Warratilla creek to hunt an armadillo : and 

 he had his little dog with him. On coming back, about 

 noon, the dog began to bark at the root of a large tree, 

 which had been upset by the whirlwind, and was lying 

 there in a gradual state of decay. The negro said, he 

 thought his dog Avas barking at an acouri, which had pro- 

 bably taken refuge under the tree, and he went up with an 

 intention to kill it : he there saw a snake, and hastened 

 back to inform me of it. 



