The Start 33 



Brazil. They had a quantity of dried beef in camp. 

 On several occasions a jaguar came into camp after this 

 dried beef. Finally they succeeded in protecting it so 

 that he could not reach it. The result, however, was 

 disastrous. On the next occasion that he visited camp, 

 at midnight, he seized a man. Everybody was asleep 

 at the time, and the jaguar came in so noiselessly as to 

 elude the vigilance of the dogs. As he seized the man, 

 the latter gave one yell, but the next moment was killed, 

 the jaguar driving his fangs through the man's skull 

 into the brain. There was a scene of uproar and con- 

 fusion, and the jaguar was forced to drop his prey and 

 flee into the woods. Next morning they followed him 

 with the dogs, and finally killed him. He was a large 

 male, in first-class condition. The only feature of note 

 about these two incidents was that in each case the man- 

 eater was a powerful animal in the prime of life ; where- 

 as it frequently happens that the jaguars that turn man- 

 eaters are old animals, and have become too inactive or 

 too feeble to catch their ordinary prey. 



During the two months before starting from Asun- 

 cion, in Paraguay, for our journey into the interior, I 

 was kept so busy that I had scant time to think of natu- 

 ral history. But in a strange land a man who cares for 

 wild birds and wild beasts always sees and hears some- 

 thing that is new to him and interests him. In the dense 

 tropical woods near Rio Janeiro I heard in late October 

 — springtime, near the southern tropic — the songs of 

 many birds that I could not identify. But the most 

 beautiful music was from a shy woodland thrush, som- 



