April 22, 1921] 



SCIENCE 



379 



of the time the fish had taten to the monie, 

 or thicket, when the overflow of cocha and 

 quebrada reached into the forest. Wliile the 

 fish are in the woods, the Loretan abandons 

 his diet of fresh fish, and resorts to his sup- 

 ply of the dried. 



Certain fishes are very abundant. But 

 there is an increasing scarcity of others. The 

 famed pirarucu {paiche of Peru) has un- 

 doubtedly been exterminated from certain 

 regions. In the Chanchomayo dynamiting has 

 greatly reduced the river fishes. The govern- 

 ment has now found it possible to prevent 

 the sale of dynamite to the poor thereabout, 

 but has found no way of curbing the practise 

 of dynamiting on the part of the wealthy and 

 influential. Poisoning streams wholesale by 

 means of the crushed root of the native 

 poison plant cube is prohibited by law. But 

 this method continues to prevail wherever 

 cube is .available, notably in the tributaries of 

 the Huallaga, the smaller of which are nearly 

 depopulated of fish. 



Some birds are also rapidly becoming 

 scarce, especially the egrets, whose plumes are 

 marketed. Two brothers Hoyle of Contamana 

 have secured recently a government monopoly 

 of the plume trade of the Ucayali. They are 

 bound by its terms to develop the fisheries of 

 the Ucayali, first as a means of rearing fish 

 to feed the egrets, and secondarily for the 

 sake of restocking the streams. How to en- 

 force respect of their charter, and how to 

 develop a fisheries industry from nothing, 

 without experience, are two large problems 

 confronting the concessionaires. They do not 

 seem to regard it a difficult matter to secure 

 a revocation of the American law forbidding 

 the importation of egret to this country. 



Seventy years ago Bates predicted the 

 rapid extinction of the turtles of the Amazon. 

 In spite of an enormous consumption of tur- 

 tles and eggs that has continued from that 

 day to this, they are still very abundant. 

 Petroleum has replaced turtle oil since that 

 time, but turtle eggs, meat, and viscera con- 

 tinue to be favorite articles of food. 



An effort was made by the expedition to 

 confirm the widespread urinophilous reputa- 



tion of the candiru (carnero of Peru). A 

 Briggs' lead-in trap properly baited was fre- 

 quently placed in rivers in the hope that it 

 might demonstrate such a tropism. This was 

 never successful. ISTor did careful inquiry 

 ever lead to the finding of an authentic case 

 of parasitism of man by this fish. That it is 

 strongly tropic to flesh or blood has been 

 demonstrated. 



Politically and economically eastern Peru 

 is in an unpromising state. Its isolation from 

 maritime Peru leads to prohibitive transporta- 

 tion costs in that direction. Thus all the 

 business of the region is thrown to the 

 Amazon. The shipping companies of the 

 Amazon and the commercial houses of Iquitos 

 control the economic life of the country. The 

 country is still so new as to be in its period 

 of destructive exploitation, and by reason of 

 its remoteness can not compete in the world 

 markets on any other basis. Due to the low 

 post-war price of cotton, the people are turn- 

 ing from agriculture to the more or less for- 

 lorn hope of developing gold and petroleum. 



The Oriente of Peru was not found by the 

 writer to be, as we are encouraged to believe, 

 wholly a land of dismal forests, swamps, 

 noxious animals, and fevers. All these ele- 

 ments are present in quantity, certainly, but 

 by no means universally distributed. Only 

 once have I seen a large boa, and very few 

 small snakes. Mr. Mitchell of Yurimaguas 

 states that he has seen but four boas in twenty 

 years' residence in Amazonia. Some rivers, 

 e.g., the Pacaya, are full of alligators, but 

 many rivers have almost none. Only one 

 region visited, that of the upjper Maranon, 

 was badly infested with fever. Insect pests 

 were numerous, and of many sorts, but not so 

 intolerable as often represented by travelers. 



The realization of Humboldt's dream does 

 not seem imminent. Such difficulties as 

 those of transportation, climate, inundation, 

 and an untaught, upambitions population, 

 must be overcome before Peruvian Amazonia 

 shall come to her own. 



WiLLUM Pay Allen 



