CROSSING THE BOLIVIAN HIGHLANDS 299 



long, outstretched neck and legs immediately gave a clew 

 to their identity. 



The forest was full of surprises. One morning my com- 

 panion encountered . a tamandud ant-eater which was on 

 the ground, and refused to reahze that the close proximity 

 of man meant danger; he was but lightly armed, and shot 

 the tough, thick-skinned animal with the 32-bore auxiliary 

 tube of his shotgun, and number 12 shot — an unheard-of 

 feat. 



It was, however, not always necessary to go into the 

 forest to hunt; the open plot in which the settlement lay 

 attracted many birds, such as scarlet tanagers, vermilion fly- 

 catchers, swallows, and others, which were never found in 

 the forest, and small mammals in abundance lived in the 

 houses. We frequently caught five species of rats in a 

 single house in one night, and at least two species of bats 

 Uved in the pakn-leaf thatch of the roof. Some of the ro- 

 dents, particularly a large, spiny rat, lived under the floor, 

 while others made the walls and ceiling their homes; each 

 species seemed to adhere more or less to its own part of the 

 dwelling, thus dividing the houses into well-defined "life- 

 zones." 



The natives are very fond of the flesh of the spiny rat 

 and often begged for any which chanced to come to our 

 traps. 



Ocelots were not wanting in the neighborhood; they vis- 

 ited the hen-houses occasionally at night, but never entered 

 by the doors, preferring to tear holes in the side of the 

 structures; they killed a large number of fowls, on one 

 occasion nearly twenty on a single visit, and prompted 

 apparently by the mere lust for killing. 



At night vampire-bats came out in hordes; they attacked 

 everything from human beings on down; even the few 

 miserable pigs kept by the Indians were severely bitten 

 and kept up a continuous squealing as the bloodthirsty 

 creatures settled on them, usually at the base of the ears, 

 and began their painful operations. The worst sufferers 



