168 



THE NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC MAGAZINE 



prove almost as interesting to visitors as 

 the game refuges along the government 

 railroad in British East Africa. 



While breakfasting on the house-boat, 

 a strange, uncouth sound came from the 

 hills to the west, rising and falling in a 

 torrent of guttural notes. It was the first 

 greeting of the "black howler," the largest 

 of the South American monkeys, whose 

 uproarious conduct, whether in tribal 

 conversation, in protestation against man 

 or the weather, was a source of aston- 

 ishment thereafter. My friend Fuertes, 

 the bird artist and naturalist, whose mim- 

 icry of bird notes is quite equal to the 

 fidelity of his brush, declares that the 

 noise of the "howler" is by far the most 

 striking sound in the American tropics, 

 being "a deep, throaty, bass roar, with 

 something of the quality of grunting pigs 

 or of the barking bellow of a bull alli- 

 gator or an ostrich. The noise was as 

 loud as the full-throated roaring of lions, 

 and its marvelous carrying power was 

 frequently attested when we heard it 

 from the far side of some great Andean 

 valley." 



It is a popular belief on the Isthmus 

 that the "black howler" is an infallible 

 weather prophet, and especially so in 

 predicting a shower. So far as we could 

 discover, it was only when the clouds 

 blackened overhead and the first prelimi- 

 nary drops began to fall that this prog- 

 nosticator considered it safe to commit 

 himself in the forecast. 



About 10 o'clock Mr. Anthony, carry- 

 ing a gun, and his guide a pack of steel 

 traps, left for the only open trail in the 

 neighborhood, leading to an older plan- 

 tation bordering the lake on the other 

 side of the promontory, while I went in 

 another direction, along a dry creek bot- 

 tom, to select places for the flashlight 

 and cameras, where the bait was to be 

 the freshly skinned carcass of the trapped 

 specimens, were they accommodating 

 enough to serve this double purpose. 

 And in passing it may be noted that the 

 only natural foot-trails, and that during 

 the dry season, are the creek bottoms, 

 which are cleared of all underbrush and 

 fallen trees by the torrential rains falling 

 during eight months in the year. It is 

 here, too, that many of the wild animals, 



large and small, seek easy routes of 

 travel, as well as coming for the purpose 

 of quenching their thirst at the small 

 pools and pot-holes scooped out in the 

 soft sandstone formation of all the 

 creeks, while others come to prey upon 

 those exposing themselves to attack. 



On returning at noon the trapping 

 party discovered a band of black howlers 

 passing overhead, with a result described 

 in the collector's notebook as follows: 

 "I felt a pang of regret at silencing one 

 of the 'howlers,' but as a specimen was 

 needed I shot the foremost and heard 

 him crash through the limbs to the 

 ground. Pangs of a more effective source 

 were experienced when my native boy 

 and I attempted to retrieve the monkey, 

 for he had fallen through a bee's nest the 

 size of a bushel basket and we found the 

 nest too late to avoid the consequences." 

 Taking a lantern after dark the specimen, 

 a fine large male, was recovered and 

 brought to the house-boat (see page 189). 



The following morning the traps only 

 yielded a number of small rodents, while 

 the runways, formerly used by larger 

 game, showed scarcely a track — plain evi- 

 dence that the heavy smoke from the 

 clearing had driven them away. This 

 compelled long and hard trips into the 

 more distant forests, where trails had to 

 be cut with a machete, foot by foot, re- 

 sulting in a wonderful collection of ticks 

 and red bugs and little game until the 

 trails had been cleared for a day or two. 

 But it was our experience here and else- 

 where that the jungles of Panama are 

 abundantly supplied with a great variety 

 of wild life. 



Observing about the house-boat sev- 

 eral good-sized fish, a coarse line and a 

 single rusty hook were put in service, 

 with the result of soon landing a dozen 

 averaging a pound or more. These re- 

 sembled the black mullet and were fairly 

 edible, proving, however, of greater serv- 

 ice in baiting the traps and the flashlight 

 machines. Whether they are land-locked 

 fish from the sea, imprisoned on the clos- 

 ing of the locks, or coming from the nu- 

 merous streams, they have certainly mul- 

 tiplied wonderfully, for we found them 

 everywhere about the lake. 



A smaller variety of fish was also no- 



