The Highland Wilderness 173 



take to bloodsucking. They did not, according to his 

 observations, themselves make the original wound; but 

 after it had been made by one of the true vampires they 

 would lap the flowing blood and enlarge the wound. 

 South America makes up for its lack, relatively to Africa 

 and India, of large man-eating carnivores by the extraor- 

 dinary ferocity or bloodthirstiness of certain small crea- 

 tures of which the kinsfolk elsewhere are harmless. It is 

 only here that fish no bigger than trout kill swimmers, 

 and bats the size of the ordinary "flittermice" of the 

 northern hemisphere drain the life-blood of big beasts 

 and of man himself. 



There was not much large mammalian life in the 

 neighborhood. Kermit hunted Industriously and brought 

 in an occasional armadillo, coati, or agouti for the natur- 

 alists. Miller trapped rats and a queer opossum new to 

 the collection. Cherrie got many birds. Cherrie and 

 Miller skinned their specimens in a little open hut or shed. 

 Moses, the small pet owl, sat on a cross-bar overhead, an 

 interested spectator, and chuckled whenever he was pet- 

 ted. Two wrens, who bred just outside the hut, were 

 much excited by the presence of Moses, and paid him 

 visits of noisy unfriendliness. The little white-throated 

 sparrows came familiarly about the palm cabins and 

 whitewashed houses and trilled on the rooftrees. It was 

 a simple song, with just a hint of our northern white- 

 throat's sweet and plaintive melody, and of the opening 

 bars of our song-sparrow's pleasant, homely lay. It 

 brought back dear memories of glorious April mornings 

 on Long Island, when through the singing of robin and 

 song-sparrow comes the piercing cadence of the meadow- 



