The Highland Wilderness 183 



very pretty and graceful, with a tail like that of the 

 Colombian blacktail. Standing motionless facing one, 

 in the sparse scrub, they are hard to make out; if seen 

 sideways the reddish of their coats, contrasted with the 

 greens and grays of the landscape, betrays them; and 

 when they bound off the upraised white tail is very con- 

 spicuous. They carefully avoid the woods in which 

 their cousins the little bush deer are found, and go singly 

 or in couples. Their odor can be made out at quite a 

 distance, but it is not rank. They still carried their 

 antlers. Their venison was delicious. 



We came across many queer insects. One red grass- 

 hopper when it flew seemed as big as a small sparrow; 

 and we passed in some places such multitudes of active 

 little green grasshoppers that they frightened the mules. 

 At our camping-place we saw an extraordinary colony of 

 spiders. It was among some dwarf trees, standing a 

 few yards apart from one another by the water. When 

 we reached the camping-place, early in the afternoon — 

 the pack-train did not get in until nearly sunset, just 

 ahead of the rain — ^no spiders were out. They were 

 under the leaves of the trees. Their .webs were tenant- 

 less, and indeed for the most part were broken down. 

 But at dusk they came out from their hiding-places, two 

 or three hundred of them in all, and at once began to 

 repair the old and spin new webs. Each spun its own 

 circular web, and sat in the middle; and each web was 

 connected on several sides with other webs, while those 

 nearest the trees were hung to them by spun ropes, so to 

 speak. The result was a kind of sheet of web consisting 

 of scores of wheels, in each of which the owner and 



