264 Through the BraziHan Wilderness 



they had built a curious entrance of their own, in the 

 shape of a spout of wax about a foot long. At the open- 

 ing the walls of the spout showed the wax formation, but 

 elsewhere it had become in color and texture indistin- 

 guishable from the bark of the tree. The honey was 

 delicious, sweet and yet with a tart flavor. The comb 

 differed much from that of our honey-bees. The honey- 

 cells were very large, and the brood-cells, which were 

 small, were in a single instead of a double row. By this 

 tree I came across an example of genuine concealing col- 

 oration. A huge tree-toad, the size of a bullfrog, was 

 seated upright — ^not squatted flat— on a big rotten limb. 

 It was absolutely motionless; the yellow brown of its 

 back, and its dark sides, exactly harmonized in color with 

 the light and dark patches on the log; the color was as 

 concealing, here in its natural surroundings, as is the 

 color of our common wood-frog among the dead leaves 

 of our woods. When I stirred it up it jumped to a small 

 twig, catching hold with the disks of its finger-tips, and 

 balancing itself with unexpected ease for so big a crea- 

 ture, and then hopped to the ground and again stood mo- 

 tionless. Evidently it trusted for safety to escaping ob- 

 servation. We saw some monkeys and fresh tapir sign, 

 and Kermit shot a jacu for the pot. 



At about three o'clock I was in the lead, when the 

 current began to run more quickly. We passed over one 

 or two decided ripples, and then heard the roar of rapids 

 ahead, while the stream began to race. We drove the 

 canoe into the bank, and then went down a tapir trail, 

 which led alongside the river, to reconnoitre. A quarter 

 of a mile's walk showed us that there were big rapids. 



