Some curious Animal Weapons. 79 



times laughed at other specifics used by the vulgar, 

 but which now have honourable places in the phar- 

 macopoeia — pepsine, for example. More than two 

 centuries ago (very ancient times for South America) 

 the gauchos were accustomed to take the lining of 

 the rhea's stomach, dried and powdered, for ailments 

 caused by impaired digestion ; and the remedy is 

 popular still. Science has gone over to them, and 

 the ostrich-hunter now makes a double profit, one 

 from the feathers, and the other from the dried 

 stomachs which he supplies to the chemists of 

 Buenos Ayres. Yet he was formerly told that to 

 take the stomach of the ostrich to improve his diges- 

 tion was as- wild an idea as it would be to swallow 

 birds' feathers in order to fly. 



I just now called Ceratophrys ornata venomous, 

 though its teeth are not formed to inject poison 

 into the veins, like serpents' teeth. It is a singular 

 creature, known as escuerzo in the vernacular, and 

 though beautiful in colour, is in form hideous beyond 

 description. The skin is of a rich brilliant green, 

 with chocolate-coloured patches, oval in form, and 

 symmetrically disposed. The lips are bright 

 yellow, the cavernous mouth pale flesh colour, the 

 throat and under-surface dull white. The body is 

 lumpy, and about the size of a large man's fist. 

 The eyes, placed on the summit of a dispropor- 

 tionately large head, are embedded in horn-like pro- 

 tuberances, capable of being elevated or depressed 

 at pleasure. When the creature is undisturbed, the 

 eyes, which are of a pale gold colour, look out as 

 from a couple of watch towers, but when touched 

 on the head or menaced, the prominences sink down 



