Here are also several varieties of pigeons and other small birds, particularly humming birds; these beautiful flutterers fly in all directions, sipping the honey from the flowers, especially those of the plantain and the banana, which are their favourites, and in which they are often completely hidden while feeding on their nectareous sweets. The small birds are more worthy of admiration for the brilliancy of their plumage than for the sweetness of their notes; indeed very few of them ever sing; and the continued chattering of the parrots is very disagreeable. The most useful bird here is the gallinaso, it may be called the public scavenger, and it is protected by the municipal law, which imposes a fine of five dollars on any person who kills one of them.
Numerous snakes infest the whole of the province of Guayaquil, and individuals are often bitten by them; but the natives are possessed of remedies, and against the poison of some, of specific antidotes. They make the patient drink a considerable quantity of olive oil, scarify round the wound, and apply pieces of calcined stag's horn; but the safest remedy known among the natives is the leaves of a creeper called huaco, which growls in the woods. The leaves are bruised to the consistency of paste, which is made into small cakes, each about the size of half a crown, and then dried in the shade. When a person is bitten, he puts one of these small cakes in his mouth, and chews it till the bitter taste is gone, at the same time swallowing his saliva; he is then bathed, the chewed herb is taken from his mouth and bound over the wound, and he recovers. The visible effects are a copious perspiration. When at Esmeraldas I was bitten in the hand by a coral snake, the bite of which is considered mortal if not immediately cured; the pain which I felt was a violent burning near the wound; it gradually spread over the part affected, accompanied with a peculiar sensation, which appeared as if a large weight were hanging to my hand, and which prevented me from raising it. A native who was with me having observed what had happened, immediately gave me a cake of the huaco herb, ordered me to chew it, and began to press my hand, squeezing the wound; in about five minutes the pain abated, and the bitter taste of the herb was gone. I bathed in the river, and laid myself down in a canoe, where I was covered with a poncho and taken to my home, which was about four miles from the spot where the accident happened. During the time that I remained in the canoe I perspired most profusely, and after retiring to my bed, more so; the pain in my hand was very much allayed, but I felt a general numbness and great debility, accompanied with nausea; I drank a large glass of almond milk, orchata, and slept about an hour; on waking I found myself feverish, my tongue parched and hard, and for four days I was very ill. A poultice of boiled pumpkin was continually kept on my hand, and the wound began to suppurate on the fourth day, when my health was gradually restored. All this time I was very apprehensive of danger, although the natives assured me that as twenty-four hours had elapsed since the bite, I was perfectly safe. For more than a fortnight I felt the effects of the poisonous fangs of the reptile, which the natives had killed almost immediately after it had wounded me, and brought it to my house. I never saw the huaco herb growing, but I have seen it when brought from the woods; the leaves are about two and a half inches long and half an inch broad; the upper surface is of a dark green, with purple veins running along it, of a glossy appearance and solid texture; the under side is of an obscure purple hue; the leaves grow singly, two being placed opposite to each other on the stem, which is slender, hard, and ribbed, and of a bluish colour. I never saw the flower, and the natives when I asked them concerning it, told me that it never did flower, at least that they had never observed any flowers on the plant.
Fortunately, a bird at Guayaquil called quiriquinqui, at Esmeraldas and on the coast of Choco, huaco, and at Quito, beteado de oro, is a great enemy to the snakes, and other venomous reptiles and insects, on which it feeds. It is a species of vulture, about the size of a hen, and is easily domesticated; its colour is a bright brown, variegated with stains of pale yellow. It flies about the woods, or runs along the savanas in quest of its food, and attacks the snakes, opposing its wing to them as a shield; when the animal is somewhat exhausted by striking at the bird, it seizes the reptile near the head, and biting it rises on its wings, and afterwards alights, and observes if it be dead; if not, it again bites it, and sometimes soaring aloft with it lets it fall, and immediately drops down after it; when dead the bird devours it. The natives affirm, that to this bird they owe the discovery of the herb which they call huaco; they observed that the bird, after fighting with a snake, would sometimes search for the herb and eat it; hence they supposed it to be an antidote for the poison, which experience has proved to be correct.
The poisonous snakes found here are the bejuco, about two feet long, very slender, and of a brown colour, having the appearance of a small cane; the cascabel, one of the varieties of the rattle snake; it is sometimes five feet long, and spotted with white and yellow; the coral, of a very beautiful appearance, owing to its bright colours, which are a deep red, bright yellow, and black, in alternate belts; the head is very flat, and although the animal is small, seldom exceeding two feet in length, its bite is considered of the most poisonous kind, and if not directly cured generally proves mortal in a few hours; the effects are an immediate swelling, and afterwards an exudation of blood from every part of the body, accompanied with the most agonizing pain, till death relieves the wretch from the anguish he endures. Don Pedro Figueroa, to whose attention I owed my cure, assured me, that he once saw the corpse of a negro who died of the bite of the coral snake, and that it had become completely white. The exis is so called on account of the marks along the back, from the head to the extremity of the tail; its length is from three to four feet, head flat, colour dark brown, with white marks like XX along the back. This snake is most active and poisonous, and is much dreaded. The sierpe volante is very dangerous; it is about eighteen inches long, very slender, of a dark brown colour, and can spring to a great distance to inflict its poisonous wound; hence the natives call it the flying serpent. Here are several kinds of harmless snakes, which the natives never kill, as they are great enemies of the poisonous ones; I once saw one of these, called the sobre cama, devouring an exis larger than itself.
The river of Guayaquil and the creeks that empty themselves into it, abound with alligators, lagartos, or caimanes, so much so, that on the banks where they lie basking in the sun they appear like logs of wood thrown up by the tide, and are so unapprehensive of danger, that a canoe or boat may pass very near to them without their being disturbed; when basking in this manner they keep their enormous mouths open, and owing to the colour of the fleshy substance on the inside of the lower jaw, as well as to a musky scent which accompanies their breath, great numbers of flies are allured to enter the mouth, the upper jaw of which, when a sufficient number are collected, suddenly falls down, and the deluded insects are swallowed.
The alligator is an oviparous animal; the female deposits her eggs in the sand, laying in the course of one or two days from eighty to a hundred; they are much larger than those of a goose, and much thicker; they are covered with a very tenacious white membrane, and are often eaten by the indians, who when they take them first open a small hole in the larger end, and place the egg in the sand with the hole downward; by this means a peculiarly disagreeable musky taste is destroyed; they afterwards cook them in the same manner as other eggs. I have tasted them, and found nothing disagreeable, except their being very tough. After depositing her eggs the female covers them with sand, and then rolls herself over them, and continues rolling to the water side, as if to prevent the spot being found where she has left her deposit; but the vigilant gallinasos are generally on the alert at this season, and when they have found the nest, destroy the whole of them. The people who live near the sides of the river train their dogs to search for the eggs, as well as to destroy them; and thus thousands are annually broken.
When instinct informs the alligator that the time of ovation is completed, both the male and female go to the nest, and if undisturbed the female immediately uncovers the eggs, and carefully breaks them; the young brood begin to run about, and the watchful gallinasos prey upon them, while the male alligator, who appears to have come for no other purpose, devours all that he possibly can; those that can mount on the neck and back of the female are safe, unless they happen to fall off, or cannot swim, in which cases she devours them. Thus nature has prepared a destruction for these dangerous animals, which would otherwise be as numerous as flies, and become the absolute proprietors of the surrounding country; even at present, notwithstanding the comparatively few that escape, their number is almost incredible.
I have frequently seen the lagartos eighteen or twenty feet long. They feed principally on fish, which they catch in the rivers, and are known sometimes to go in a company of ten or twelve to the mouths of the small rivers and creeks, where two or three ascend while the tide is high, leaving the rest at the mouth; when the tide has fallen, one party besets the mouth of the creek, while the other swims down the stream, flapping their tails, and driving the fish into the very jaws of their devourers, which catch them, and lift their heads out of the water to swallow them.
When these voracious creatures cannot procure a sufficient quantity of fish to satisfy their hunger, they betake themselves to the savanas, where they destroy the calves and foals, lurking about during the day, and seizing their prey when asleep at night, which they drag to the water side, and there devour it. The cattle and the dogs appear sensible of their danger when they go to the rivers to drink, and will howl and bark until they have attracted the attention of the lagartos at one place, and then drop back and run to another, where they drink in a hurry, and immediately leave the water side; otherwise, as has been the case, an alligator would seize on them by the nose, drag them under the water, and drown and eat them.