ZOOLOGICAL SOCIETY BULLETIN 



1429 



X 



Photograph by PaiilG. Howes 



THE PERM ( ROOSEVELTIELLA NIGER] 



small i^iece at a time, but considering the hun- 

 dreds that gather about the unfortunate animal 

 that unwarily falls within their reach, they are 

 indeed, a menace. Once blood begins to stain 

 the water they become a hoard of blood-crazy 

 demons. 



In the upper reaches of the rivers every ani- 

 mal that by chance, flounders through the Ava- 

 ter, is their prey ; even the birds that flutter 

 down to drink are often snapped up ; nor is man 

 exempt. Col. Roosevelt tells how various mem- 

 bers of his party were bitten, and how wounded 

 animals, even cayman, are 

 often partially devoured be- 

 fore thej^ can be recovered 

 from the water into which 

 they have struggled or fall- 

 en after being shot. I have 

 seen wounded birds, when 

 only a few feet from the 

 shore, dragged down, not to 

 come up again. Splashing 

 and rippling seems to at- 

 tract rather than frighten 

 them away. 



Natives, when entering 

 the water, do so with care 

 and quiet, though, it is true, 

 during my experience with 

 them, none were ever in any 

 way attacked ; and the chil- 

 dren daily spent much time 

 playing about waist-deep in 

 places where perai abound- 

 ed. In the higher levels of 



the rivers, where food is less 

 profuse, the perai doubtless 

 are more lerocious and will 

 attack ar(y living thing even 

 though no blood oozes from 

 it as an attraction. There 

 have been cases where per- 

 sons, idly trailing their 

 hands in the water from the 

 side of a canoe, have lost 

 one or more fingers from the 

 cruel jaws. 



The question whether the 

 perai is a bottom or a sur- 

 face fish is a much-mooted 

 one. Probably it is both. 

 Time and again, I have seen 

 them playing near the sur- 

 face, often leaping clear of 

 the water. Again, to catch 

 them on a hook, it is best to 

 have the bait near the bot- 

 tom. The Indians, to catch 

 them, hold the dripping entrails of a freshly 

 killed agouti just over the water so that the 

 ends trail and the blood spreads away with the 

 current. The perai, its craving aroused by the 

 thin taint of blood, moves up the stream until it 

 reaches the dangling morsel and greedily seizes 

 it. Then there is the twang of a bow-string; the 

 fish is transfixed by a long, hollow, spear- like 

 arrow, and soon finds itself twisting and biting 

 with others of its kind in the bottom of the 

 "woodskin." They are welcome articles of food 

 to the natives, but to the white man their flesli 



Photograph by Paul G. Hu\m 



IlKAD OK THE PERM 



