A Jaguar-Hunt on the Taquary 89 



minutes later. But much more extraordinary was the 

 fact that when a cayman about five feet long was wounded 

 the piranhas attacked and tore it, and actually drove it 

 out on the bank to face its human foes. The fish first 

 attacked the wound; then, as the blood maddened them, 

 they attacked all the soft parts, their terrible teeth cut- 

 ting out chunks of tough hide and flesh. Evidently they 

 did not molest either cayman or capybara while it was 

 unwounded; but blood excited them to frenzy. Their 

 habits are in some ways inexplicable. We saw men fre- 

 quently bathing unmolested; but there are places where 

 this is never safe, and in any place if a school of the 

 fish appear swimmers are in danger; and a wounded 

 man or beast is in deadly peril if piranhas are in the 

 neighborhood. Ordinarily it appears that an unwounded 

 man is attacked only by accident. Such accidents are 

 rare ; but they happen with sufficient frequency to justify 

 much caution in entering water where piranhas abound. 

 We frequently came across ponds tenanted by num- 

 bers of capybaras. The huge, pig-like rodents are said 

 to be shy elsewhere. Here they were tame. The water 

 was their home and refuge. They usually went ashore 

 to feed on the grass, and made well-beaten trails in the 

 marsh immediately around the water ; but they must have 

 travelled these at night, for we never saw them more 

 than a few feet away from the water in the daytime. 

 Even at midday we often came on them standing beside 

 a bayou or pond. The dogs would rush wildly at such 

 a standing beast, which would wait until they were only 

 a few yards off and then dash into and under the water. 

 The dogs would also run full tilt into the water, and it 



