In the Wilds of South America

by Leo E. Miller

Corumbá is a very hot, dusty town built on a high, rocky elevation on the west bank of the Paraguay. The settlement bears the unenviable reputation of being the rendezvous for fugitives from justice from many climates, but we saw nothing of the lawlessness and disorder said to prevail, and the treatment we received was all that could be desired. The heat at midday was great, but frequently a breeze came up at night. Rows of low, spreading mimosa-trees lined some of the streets and cast a welcome shade; their branches were covered with clumps of gorgeous scarlet flowers.

A railroad in course of construction will soon connect Corumbá with Rio de Janeiro. There is also a cart trail leading through the heart of the chaco to Santa Cruz, Bolivia; to travel over it is a difficult undertaking, the ox-drawn carts requiring a minimum of thirty days for the trip. During the rainy season a large part of the country is inundated, when the caravans must, of course, suspend their activity. I met two men who had made this journey but a short time before. One night a party of Indians attacked and killed all the members of a caravan, stopping only a half-mile distant from the spot where one of these men and his family had made their camp. The tribes along this route are the Penoquies, Guaranokas, and Potoreras, and they are said to be of a treacherous, hostile disposition.

As there was little zoological work to be done in the immediate vicinity of Corumbá, we moved to a place called Urucúm, about nine miles away. The road lay through scrub growth and forest, and was all but impassable on account of the deep mud and rocks. Numbers of native cabins are scattered along the wayside; some of the occupants conduct dairy-farms, and the cows carry bells tied to the tips of their horns.

Urucúm proved to be a garden spot of clear, cold springs, shady groves, and plantations of tropical fruits and vegetables. In the centre of all stood comfortable cottages with large, well-ventilated rooms and delightful shower-baths. Fields and forested hillsides, marshes, and lagoons were easy of access; in them dwelt an abundant and varied fauna. A grove of magnificent mango-trees grew near the house that had been assigned for our use; hundreds of bats came to the trees each morning just as dawn was breaking, to seek their diurnal sleeping-quarters among the dense foliage. They arrived in unbroken streams and spent a great deal of time whirring through the branches, squeaking and making queer little noises that sounded as if they were grating their teeth. Then they finally settled in clusters of from six to a dozen individuals in some particularly thick clump of leaves and, suspended by the claws of their hind feet, began their daytime slumbers. On windy or rainy days they lost little time in becoming settled, and did not seek the swaying branches, but clung to the tree-trunks or on the under-side of the thick limbs. This species of bat (Vampyrops lineatus) has a leaf-shaped appendage on top of the nose which may be of some use to the animal, but is probably of little consequence. This “leaf,” the nose and face, including the tips of the ears, were tinged with delicate green. As the bats hung head downward, the green-tinted extremity naturally pointed toward the earth; but if the color was intended as a protection it was of little or no avail, as it could not be seen unless the animal was examined at close range. Other individuals of the same species were collected in a dark cave in the near-by mountains. They, however, showed only a very faint or no trace at all of the green coloring on the face. I am convinced that this color is not a vegetable stain, but that the pigment exists in the skin; it fades soon after death.

A footpath leading through the forest a distance of several miles ended at a manganese-mine which penetrated into the mountainside about three hundred feet. Although the mine had been by no means exhausted, it was no longer worked, owing to the great expense of transporting the ore. The dark, deserted tunnel was an ideal resort for bats of not less than four species; one of them (Mimon bennetti) was of considerable size. We entered the mine with a lighted candle, but the bats invariably soon put out the light with their wings. Each kind, it seemed, occupied a different part of the tunnel. At first they were slow to leave their places of concealment in the crevices between the rocks, but after a few days’ persecution numbers of them rushed from the mine and disappeared over the top of the mountain at the mere appearance of the lighted candle in the entrance. The men who accompanied me on these excursions refused to enter the dark opening in the mountainside, as they said it was infested with poisonous snakes; but, although we explored it thoroughly on several occasions, not a single reptile was ever seen.

In walking through the forest we always saw animals that were of more than passing interest. One day I surprised a tiger-cat in the trail; it ran a few yards and then started up a tree, rapidly climbing about twenty-five feet, and then clung to the rough bark; it remained perfectly motionless and permitted me to walk up to within a short distance of the base of the tree. A short time later I came upon two cebus monkeys feeding in the branches above the trail. I shot at one of them, wounding it. The other was fully ten yards away, but rushed to the rescue, and taking up the wounded animal started off with it at a rapid pace. Most South American monkeys will promptly desert a comrade in danger or trouble, but in this instance it was a female with her two-thirds-grown offspring, and the mother-love was so much stronger than her fear that she exposed herself to danger without hesitation, in saving her distressed young.

One of the most surprising animals encountered in the forest was a large, red, hairy armadillo (Euphractus). It sprang up suddenly, almost beneath one’s feet, and bounded away with such great speed that it always reminded me of a boulder hurtling down a hillside. Within a few moments it was lost from view among the undergrowth, but the bumping noise as it struck the earth at each jump could be heard for some time after the animal had disappeared. At night these armadillos came out into the clearings and did a great deal of damage in the fields newly planted in corn. We desired to trap some of the creatures, so, following the advice of the natives, we cleared a path one thousand metres long and one metre wide on the edge of the field, and next to the forest. Four salt-barrels were sunk in this cleared lane, their tops flush with the earth; then we covered the openings with a thin layer of dried grass. Grains of corn were strewn all along the cleared stretch, and a liberal amount was sprinkled on the grass covering the pits. The armadillos, in their nocturnal excursions from and to the forest, were attracted by the line of corn and followed it, eating the kernels as they went; when they arrived at one of the barrels they plunged into it and were unable to clamber out. We caught several in this manner. One of them was despatched to the Bronx Zoological Park, but it died en route. It is a remarkable fact that after the armadillos fell into the barrels, which contained no wooden bottoms, they made no attempt to burrow out. Their long claws and strong limbs enable them to dig with ease and rapidity. When cornered they fight viciously with the claws and teeth and are capable of inflicting dangerous wounds.

One of the owners of Urucúm stated that at one time he owned a pet jaguar that subsisted entirely on armadillos caught in the manner described above. The flesh is esteemed by the people, also.

On several occasions we saw the gaping entrance to the tunnel of a Tatu canasto, or giant armadillo, but at no time did we have a glimpse of its occupant. This is one of the curious, archaic creatures persisting, together with the giant ant-bear, sloth, and hoatzin, long after the star of their age has passed its zenith. Apparently they were not at all uncommon, for we saw scores of the enormous carapaces, looking like casques of armor, in the curio-shops at Asuncion. The animal is fully four feet long, and weighs upward of sixty pounds. A single claw that I found on the Upper Orinoco was seven inches long.

Another visitor to the plantations was a kind of small, red forest-deer or brocket (Mazama) with single-spike horns. They spent the days in the heavy timber or dense, low thickets and wild banana-brakes. They were particularly fond of growing beans and destroyed quantities of the legumes in a single night. The natives’ way of ridding themselves of the plunderer is to erect a high platform on poles in the centre of the field, commanding a view on all sides, and then shoot the animal as it emerges from its hiding-place.