THE MAQUIRITARES' LAND 165 



tives will not go in bathing except in very shallow water, and 

 I know of two instances where men were attacked and se- 

 verely bitten before they could escape. The fish somewhat 

 resembles a bass in shape, although the mouth is smaller; 

 the jaws are armed with triangular, razor-edged teeth; and 

 as they travel in immense shoals they are capable of easily 

 devouring a man or large animal if caught in deep water. 

 Floundering or splashing in the water attracts them, but 

 they seldom attack unless their appetite has been whetted 

 by a taste of blood; and then woe to the unfortunate crea- 

 ture which falls into their power. To catch them, we used 

 a large hook seciu-ed to a long wire leader and baited with 

 any kind of raw meat, and they always put up a good fight. 

 Without a wire, a line would be bitten in two eveiy time 

 a fish struck. When taken from the water they are first 

 killed by a blow on the head with the machete, and then 

 removed from the hook. 



At night there was always a heavy dew, and it rained 

 intermittently each day. On dark nights, and often after 

 a shower, the banks of the river where there was forest 

 glowed with twinkling phosphorescence. Examination 

 showed that the decaying vegetation was filled with myriads 

 of small, wriggling insects, greatly resembling our well- 

 known cellar-bug (Isopod), and one day we paddled for 

 many hours through a mass of flying ants which had come 

 to grief in the river. The water was covered with them 

 and the waves had tossed them up on the banks to a depth 

 of several inches. Another thing that attracted our at- 

 tention was the large number of bats. On one occasion we 

 heard a dull rumbling among the granite ledges near camp, 

 and not long after a stream of bats began to emerge from 

 the cracks; from a distance they resembled a cloud of smoke. 

 There must have been many thousands, for the black, masses 

 continued to rise until darkness obscured them from our 

 view. Spruce records that on one occasion he saw not less 

 than a million under similar circumstances. This brings 

 up an interesting problem. The individual range of these 



