A BROCKET DEER! RESCUED FROM A FLOATING ISLAND WHEN A FAWN (SEE P. 171) 



and curl up on its back for warmth. My 

 later introduction to this interesting ani- 

 mal is referred to again when testing its 

 eyes under an artificial light to see 

 whether they would shine. 



SHOOTING A BOA-CONSTRICTOR 



The dispersal or isolation of wild life 

 had mostly occurred before our arrival. 

 Some of the best specimens of the larger 

 animals were obtained, through the as- 

 sistance of hounds, on several of the is- 

 lands where the deer and peccaries were 

 still abundant, but more or less preyed 

 upon by jaguars and ocelot. One after- 

 noon when cruising through a forest of 

 gaunt, dead trees, and where the water 

 was fully 20 feet deep, we were surprised 

 to see a large boa-constrictor sunning it- 

 self on a limb not much above the sur- 

 face. 



Regarding it as a good museum speci- 

 men, a rifle ball pierced the body just 

 back of .the head, and with a convulsive 

 movement the snake hurled itself toward 

 the bow of the launch, from which it un- 



fortunately slid into the water, leaving 

 only a crimson circle and a string of bub- 

 bles on its way to the bottom, where it 

 could not be recovered. Whether it 

 sought out a dead tree in the open water 

 as the only available basking place in this 

 deluged district or had found some form 

 of prey unknown to us was hard to de- 

 termine 



DIFFICULTIES OF NIGHT PHOTOGRAPHY IN 

 THE TROPICS 



While I had been previously success- 

 ful in flashlight photography in southern 

 climes like Mexico and the West Indies, 

 this method in Panama proved difficult. 

 •Previous experiences had led me to ex- 

 pect frequent annoying visits from the 

 omnivorous opossum, but here the coun- 

 try was alive with them after dark, rang- 

 ing from the size of the northern species 

 down to those no larger than a small 

 squirrel (see page 187). No sooner was 

 it dark than I could hear the reports from 

 the scattered flashlight machines, with al- 

 ways a probability of their having been 



173 



