268 NOCTURNAL LIFE OF ANIMALS 



genus ( 4 ) of the family of Euphorbiacese. Some slender 

 thorny palms, called by the Spaniards Piritu and Coroso 

 (perhaps species of Martinezia and Bactris), stand next ; and 

 the whole resembles a close, well-pruned garden hedge, 

 having only occasional openings at considerable distances 

 from each other, which have doubtless been made by the 

 larger four-footed beasts of the forest to gain easy access to 

 the river. One sees, more especially in the early morning 

 and at sunset, the American tiger or jaguar, the tapir, and 

 the peccary, lead their young through these openings to the 

 river to drink. "When startled by the passing canoe, they 

 do not attempt to regain the forest by breaking forcibly 

 through the hedge which has been described, but one has 

 the pleasure of seeing these wild animals stalk leisurely along 

 between the river and the hedge for four or five hundred 

 paces, until they have reached the nearest opening, when 

 they disappear through it. In the course of an almost 

 uninterrupted river navigation of 1520 geographical miles 

 on the Orinoco to near its sources, on the Cassiquiare, and 

 on the Bio Negro, and during which we were confined for 

 seventy-four days to a small canoe, we enjoyed the repeti- 

 tion of the same spectacle at several different points, and I 

 may add, always with new delight. There came down 

 together, to drink, to bathe, or to fish, groups consisting of 

 the most different classes of animals, the larger mammalia, 

 being associated with many coloured herons, palamedeas, 

 and proudly-stepping curassow and cashew birds (Crax 

 Alector and C. Pauxi). "Es como en el Paraiso;" 

 it is here as in Paradise, said, with a pious air, our 



