148 NATURAL HISTORY READER. 



CAPTURE OF A CAYMAN. 



1. The cayman is the terror and scourge of all the 

 large rivers in South America near the line. Perhaps no 

 animal in existence bears more decided marks of cruelty 

 and malice than the cayman. His mouth is armed with 

 thirty-two formidable teeth in each jaw, but he has no 

 grinders ; he is made to snatch and swallow. The back of 

 the cayman may be said to be almost impenetrable to a 

 musket-ball, but his sides are not nearly so hard ; indeed, 

 were the sides as hard and unyielding as the other parts of 

 his body, there would not be elasticity enough to admit of 

 expansion after taking in a supply of food. 



2. I was exceedingly anxious to capture a cayman for 

 the purpose of dissection. To this end we went up the 

 Essequibo Eiver to a creek which abounded in the game 

 we were seeking. Here I baited hooks for several nights, 

 and, although caymans were seen in plenty, they were too 

 wary to be caught. Several times they came up and took 

 the bait off the hooks. The Indians told me the cayman 

 would never be captured by a hook like the one we used, 

 and I finally became convinced that this was true. As a 

 last resort, one of the Indians prepared a hook and bait of 

 his own and placed it carefully in the water. He then 

 took the empty shell of a tortoise and gave it some heavy 

 blows with an axe. I asked him why he did that. He said 

 that it was to let the cayman hear that something was 

 going on. In fact, the Indian meant it for the cayman's 

 dinner-bell. 



3. Having done this, we went back to the hammocks, 

 not intending to visit it again till morning. During the 

 night the jaguars roared and grumbled in the forest, as 

 though the world was going wrong with them, and at in- 

 tervals we could hear the distant cayman. The roaring 



