CLOUD-DRIFTS IN THE ANDES.
TORBES VALLEY AND THE COLOMBIAN HILLS.
Fish abound in rivers, lakes, and seas, but, considering their number, remarkably little is known about them. Some are regarded as poisonous, and others are certainly dangerous, such as the small but ferocious caribe of the Llano rivers, which is particularly feared by bathers, as an attack from a shoal results in numbers of severe, often fatal, wounds. The temblador or electric eel is very abundant in the western Llanos, and is as dangerous in its way as the caribe.
The insects are too numerous for more than casual reference, but it may be noted that the mosquito of the Spaniards is a small and very annoying sandfly; the mosquito as we know it is, and always has been, called zancudo de noche by the Spanish-speaking inhabitants of Venezuela. The gorgeous butterflies and the emerald lights of the fireflies are in a measure a compensation for the discomforts caused by their relatives, but of the less attractive forms, the most interesting are the hunting ants, which swarm through houses at times devouring all refuse, and the parasol ants, which make with the leaves they carry hot-beds, as it were, for the fungus upon which they feed.
One of the most unpleasant of the lower forms of life in the forests is the araña mono or big spider of Guayana, which sometimes measures more than six inches across; it is found in the remote parts of the forest, and its bites cause severe fever. The better-known tarantula, though less dangerous, can inflict severe bites. The extremely poisonous scorpions and the garrapatas or ticks must be seen or felt to be appreciated.
We may leave the lower forms of life to more technical works, but the amusing “calling-crab” deserves special mention. With his one enormous paw of pincers the male if disturbed will sit upon the mud or sand and apparently challenge all the world to “come on” in a most amusing fashion.
A host of interesting birds, beasts, and plants have already been found in Venezuela, and it still presents an almost virgin field for the botanist and zoologist, to whom the technical literature given in the bibliography will prove of more use than this necessarily brief sketch.