XXIII 
ANIMAL MIGRATIONS 
373 
dinner-table. "Now," said Dona Juanita, *'is the 
time for the water cure " ; and she set her maids to 
sprinkle water over the visitors, who at once took 
the hint, gathered up their scattered squadrons, 
reformed in column, and resumed their march. 
Whenever their inquisitions became troublesome 
to myself during the three days, I took the liberty 
to scatter a few suggestive drops among them, and 
it always sufficed to make them turn aside ; but any 
attempt at a forcible ejectment they were sure to 
resent with tooth and tail ; and their bite and sting 
were rather formidable, for they were large and 
lusty ants. For weeks afterwards the squeaking of 
a mouse and the whirring of a cockroach were 
sounds unheard in that house.^ 
Migrations of Birds and Mammals 
The most remarkable migration that I have my- 
self witnessed in South America is that of the great 
Wood-Ibis [Tantahis lomlator), called Jabiril in 
Brazil, Gauan in Venezuela, between the Amazon 
and the Orinoco, a distance of from 300 to 500 miles 
in a straight line, but a thousand or more following 
the course of the rivers. The migrations are so 
timed that the birds are always on the one river or 
the other when the water is lowest and there is 
most sandy beach exposed, affording the greatest 
extent of fishing-ground. In the years 1853 and 
^ The ants called Carniceras or Butchers in Maynas are probably of a 
tribe distinct from the Foragers ; for they are burrowing ants, and are said to 
prefer the flesh of human carcasses to any other food. Padre Velasco, in his 
History of Quito, assures us that they will make a perfect skeleton of a corpse 
the very day it is buried, and that they devour any disabled animal, however 
large, they find in the forest. 
