FORESTS OF THE UAUPES 341 
instead of the few that are now kept in private 
houses merely as pets. They require no training 
to hunt snakes, but only to be encouraged to seek 
them out. The agami might even be introduced 
into British India with very great advantage. It 
would find there a congenial climate ; it is harmless 
and affectionate, and it likes the society and the 
protection of man. One does not see, indeed, why 
the native mongoose has not been more utilised in 
that country for the same purpose, but the agami 
would prove (I think) a far superior snake-hunter 
to the mongoose. 
It is amusing to watch a lot of hens pounce on a 
snake, tear it up and devour it, and to contrast that 
with their terror at the sight of a scorpion, and 
especially with the horrified note of warning of a 
hen to one of her brood which she sees about to 
peck at a scorpion ; for the latter, although stabbed 
through by the chicken's beak, would curl up its 
long scaly tail and sting it in the head, no doubt 
fatally. 
Swine are great enemies to snakes, and eat them 
greedily. A person who kept large herds on the 
savannahs of Guayaquil told me he had never 
known any but very young porkers bitten by a 
snake. The pig, he said, was a very quick-sighted 
animal, and when a snake darted on it, it immediately 
erected all its bristles, so that the snake's fangs 
never reached its skin. 
Man is not invulnerable to snake-bites like the 
agami, nor has he the quickness of sight and 
movement which some other animals possess, 
certainly in a far greater degree than fowls and 
swine. All he can do, in traversing the forest, is 
