212 IN THE WILDS OF SOUTH AMERICA 



curious, archaic creatures persisting, together with the 

 giant ant-bear, sloth, and hoatzin, long after the star of 

 their age has passed its zenith. Apparently they were not 

 at all uncommon, for we saw scores of the enormous cara- 

 paces, looking like casques of armor, in the curio-shops at 

 Asuncion. The animal is fully four feet long, and weighs 

 upward of sixty pounds. A single claw that I found on 

 the Upper Orinoco was seven inches long. 



Another visitor to the plantations was a kind of small, 

 red forest-deer or brocket (Mazama) with single-spike horns. 

 They spent the days in the heavy timber or dense, low 

 thickets and wild banana-brakes. They were particularly 

 fond of growing beans and destroyed quantities of the leg- 

 umes in a single night. The natives' way of ridding them- 

 selves of the plunderer is to erect a high platform on poles 

 in the centre of the field, commanding a view on all sides, 

 and then shoot the animal as it emerges from its hiding- 

 place. 



We also secured a good specimen of one of the rarest ani- 

 mals foimd in South America. It is the red wolf (CUryso- 

 cyon), or guaraguasu, of the Brazilians. However, very 

 little is known of the animal's habits even by the Indians 

 and natives who are usually so prolific with stories about the 

 wild creatures coming under their observation. My own 

 experience is limited to two fleeting glances of the huge red 

 forms dashing away at breakneck speed several hundred 

 yards distant, and to hearing the weird, strange wail at 

 night. It equals or exceeds in size the gray wolf of our 

 north woods. It is said to live singly, frequenting the 

 chapadao and papyrus marshes, and to travel great dis- 

 tances in quest of rabbits, cavies, and other small mammals 

 that form its principal items of food. 



There were also peccaries, black howler monkeys and 

 marmosettes, and among the smaller mammals living in 

 the deep forest was a curious little woolly opossum (Meta- 

 chirus) that ventured out only after dark in search of fruits, 

 insects, birds, or almost anything of an edible nature. It 



