COLOURING OF CORAL-SNAKE 239 



stretched as a hand-rail, necessary with such precarious 

 footing. The rise of the river had swept away the 

 bridge, but the props and the rope hand-rail remained. 

 In the afternoon, from the boat, Cherrie shot a large 

 dark grey monkey with a prehensile tail. It was very 

 good eating. 



We camped on a dry level space, but a few feet above, 

 and close beside, the river — so that our swimming-bath 

 was handy. The trees were cleared and camp was made 

 with orderly hurry. One of the men almost stepped on 

 a poisonous coral-snake, which would have been a serious 

 thing, as his feet were bare. But I had on stout shoes, 

 and the fangs of these serpents — unlike those of the pit- 

 vipers — are too short to penetrate good leather. I 

 promptly put my foot on him, and he bit my shoe with 

 harmless venom. It has been said that the brilliant hues 

 of the coral-snake when in its native haunts really confer 

 on it a concealing coloration. In the dark and tangled 

 woods, and to an only less extent in the ordinary varied 

 landscape, anything motionless, especially if partially 

 hidden, easily eludes the eye. But against the dark 

 brown mould of the forest floor on which we found this 

 coral-snake its bright and varied coloration was distinctly 

 revealing ; infinitely more so than the duller mottling of 

 the jararaca and other dangerous snakes of the genus 

 lachesis. In the same place, however, we found a 

 striking example of genuine protective or mimetic 

 coloration and shape. A rather large insect larva — at 

 least we judged it to be a larval form, but we were none 

 of us entomologists — bore a resemblance to a partially 

 curled dry leaf which was fairly startling. The tail 

 exactly resembled the stem or continuation of the midrib 

 of the dead leaf The flattened body was curled up at 

 the sides, and veined and coloured precisely like the 



