154 
ZOOLOGICAL SOCIETY BULLETIN 
opossum, snarling as it backed slowly away over 
the rocks, avoiding the water, and showing not 
a fraction of the timidity of those we desired so 
much. 
In addition to our disappointment, at the 
same moment we both fell into separate pot¬ 
holes, and then I climbed out and plumped into 
another. So we sat down to drip and drain and 
to post mortem what we could have done if we 
had brought a heavy gun. 
At the next flash of lightning, I went on up 
river alone and found the pools so deep and 
continuous that I had to make my way along 
the bank under the overhanging foliage. Reach¬ 
ing out to help myself by swinging on a branch, 
I was startled to have part of the dry foliage 
tear out of my grasp and turn into a large 
lizard which scurried faster up the bark than 
my flash could follow. Examining the rest of the 
plant, I discovered five more basilisk lizards, 
out of reach, all asleep, or just awake and 
watching me, stretched out along the drooping 
twigs. Like Polychrus in Guiana these, and 
others which I saw during the night, were all 
lying head up, the long tails indistinguishable 
from the hanging ends of the twigs, the great 
expanses of casque, and frill and fins, all merg¬ 
ing with the many dried and crinkled brown 
leaves still lining the branches. I think the fly¬ 
ing dragons of Borneo are the only lizards I 
have ever seen more spectacular than these 
basilisks. At night, at least, they were of a rich, 
warm, leaf brown. From the back of the head 
rose abruptly a dark, backward curved casque. 
The body supported a long finlike crest, almost 
as high as the body was deep, and there was a 
third great dorsal fin on the proximal half of 
the tail. 
The smaller bipedal lizards were wholly dif¬ 
ferent in pattern and coloring, dark grey with 
yellow and white markings, yet they had the 
beginnings of the casque and the high fins. I 
saw none on the lower trees and bushes, except 
that in the flycatcher’s nest, but they were quite 
common in daylight, feeding at the edges of 
the shallows, running, or swimming across the 
pools. 
A bright pair of eyes in a place where none 
of the rest of the creature was visible was too 
tempting to resist. I was so close that I fired 
well to one side and ran up just in time to catch 
a white-eyed opossum by the tail as she was 
ambling off into the brush, Metachirus opossum 
fuscogriseus. One shot pellet had slightly lamed 
her, and made it possible for me to reach her. 
I bagged her, but not before she had well bitten 
me, climbing unexpectedly up her tail to reach 
my finger. The next day she had completely 
recovered, fed heartily and snarlingly allowed 
me to examine the two large infants which re¬ 
mained in her pouch. Another had dropped out 
when I captured her and she refused to rein¬ 
state it. 
As I squatted by the pothole I was aware of 
a heavy scent as of jasmine, which spread with¬ 
out any wind, and passed, with the atmosphere 
still breathless. Next I could distinguish ’pos¬ 
sum scent and again the sweet perfume. Twice 
before during the night I had detected sudden, 
violent, very individual odors, as from invisible 
flowers which had just opened aloft. 
Back I went to our first stand and then by 
agreement I started across for the second river. 
A last glance around showed a pair of shining 
eyes close to the riffle. No manipulation of my 
flash revealed any other hint, but the pale pink 
color at last made me decide to investigate 
rather than shoot. For my pride’s sake I was 
glad, for the eyes did not move as I approached 
and finally pushed the flash within a few inches 
of a great grey ctenid spider, flat and witii 
widespread, spiny legs, resting on the moist 
rocks for heaven knows what provender. Ex¬ 
cept for the slight difference in color, at a dis¬ 
tance of fifty feet, the jack light showed up two 
of his eight eyes, quite indistinguishable from 
those of an opossum at twice the distance. 
My companion returned. He had seen an¬ 
other Yapock but had overshot it, but had se¬ 
cured, to his disgust, an evil-smelling white 
opossum, which I kept as consolation, Didelphis 
marsupialis etensis. A hundred yards of crawl¬ 
ing by intermittent flashes brought us to the 
second stream. We peered out from a screen 
of leaves, which in daylight were doubtless 
green, and close in front another white opos¬ 
sum quartered the rock like a huge albino rat, 
snuffling here and there for something edible. 
Beyond were two spiny rats, travelling slowly 
side by side, their eyes small and less distinct, 
their dark bodies curiously visible in our low 
swung light. 
The life of the Yapock, Chironectes pana- 
mensis, is as great a mystery as its haunts are 
difficult of access. I found three separate en¬ 
trances to burrows, easily identified by the 
numerous webbed and fingered tracks. The 
holes were about six inches in diameter and all 
well up under overhanging roots and banks, 
out of reach of all but the very highest floods. 
They led either straight in or slightly upward, 
but we could not get to the ends on account of 
