74 A JAGUAR-HUNT ON THE TAQUARY 



and a doe, and preserved them as museum specimens. 

 They were in the papyrus growth, but their stomachs 

 contained only the fine marsh-grass which grows in the 

 water and on the land along the edges of the swamps ; 

 the papyrus was used only for cover, not for food. The 

 buck had two big scent-glands beside the nostrils ; in 

 the doe these were rudimentary. On this day Kermit 

 also came across a herd of the big, fierce, white-lipped 

 peccary ; at the sovmd of their grunting Nips promptly 

 spurred his horse and took to his heels, explaining that 

 the peccaries would charge them, hamstring the horses, 

 and kill the riders. Kermit went into the jungle after 

 the truculent httle wild hogs on foot, and followed them 

 for an hour, but never was able to catch sight of them. 



In the afternoon of this same day one of the jaguar- 

 hunters — merely ranch hands, who knew something of the 

 chase of the jaguar — who had been searching for tracks, 

 rode in with the information that he had found fresh 

 signs at a spot in the swamp about nine miles distant. 

 Next morning we rose at two, and had started on our 

 jaguar-hunt at three. Colonel Rondon, Kermit, and I, 

 with the two trailers or jaguar-hunters, made up the 

 party, each on a weedy, imdersized marsh pony, accus- 

 tomed to traversing the vast stretches of morass ; and 

 we were accompanied by a brown boy, with saddle-bags 

 holding our lunch, who rode a long-homed trotting 

 steer, which he managed by a string through its nostrU 

 and lip. The two trailers carried each a long clumsy 

 spear. We had a rather poor pack. Besides our own 

 two dogs, neither of which was used to jaguar-hunting, 

 there were the ranch-dogs, which were wellnigh worth- 

 less, and then two jaguar hounds, borrowed for the 

 occasion from a ranch six or eight leagues distant. 

 These were the only hounds on which we could place 



