As there was something curious in all this, something that could not fail to fix the attention of the observer, our adventurers remained silent, watching the movements of the insect multitude, in hopes that they might find some way of detaching themselves from the floating log, and leave in peaceable and undisputed possession the quarters they appeared so desirous of quitting to those who were equally desirous of entering upon them.
Chapter Sixty Three.
The Tamandua: The Ant-Thrush.
Trusting to the explanation given by the tapuyo, they did not think of inquiring further into the cause of the commotion among the ants. While scanning the tree closely, several of the party perceived a movement among its branches, and soon after the form of a singular creature that was causing it. It was a quadruped, about the size of a raccoon or cat, but of a shape peculiarly its own. Its body was long and cylindrical, terminating posteriorly in a round, tapering tail, while its low, flat head, prolonged into a smooth, slender muzzle, also tapered nearly to a point. The eyes were so small as scarcely to be seen, and the mouth more resembled a round hole than the closing of a pair of jaws. It was covered with a dense silky fur, of a uniform length over the body, and slightly crisped, so as to give it a woolly aspect. This fur was straw-coloured, with a tinge of maroon and brown on the shoulders and along the back, while the tail presented a ringed appearance from an alternation of the two colours.
“Tamandua!” exclaimed Munday, at sight of the strange quadruped. “The ant-eater. Not the great one, which is called Tamandua assu, and don’t climb up the trees. That you see is the little one; he lives all his life among the branches,—sleeps there, either upon his breast, or suspended by his tail,—travels from one tree to another in search of honey, bees, wasps, grubs, but, above all, of such ants as make their nests either in holes, or stick to the twigs. Ha!” he continued, “what could I have been thinking of? The tocandeiras wishing to climb up to the tree? Not a bit of it. Quite the contrary. It’s the tamandua that’s keeping them in motion! See the cunning beast preparing to make a descent among them!”
Nothing could be more certain than that this was the tamandua’s intention; for almost on the instant it was seen to move among the branches, descending from one to the other, partly using its strong, hooked claws, and partly its tapering and highly prehensile tail. Once upon the dead-wood, it lay flat down upon its breast and belly; and shooting out its long, thread-like tongue, coated with a sticky shining substance resembling saliva, it commenced licking up the tocandeiras that swarmed in thousands around it. It was to no purpose that the ants made an attack upon it. Nature had provided it with an armour proof both against their bite and sting. Rage around it as they might, the tocandeiras could do nothing to hinder it from licking them up from the log, and tucking them in hundreds into its capacious stomach. Finally the tamandua had taken his fill,—breakfasted to his heart’s content; then, erecting himself on his hind-legs after the manner of a squirrel or marmoset, he sprang back upon the branch from which he had descended. Going a little higher up, he selected another and larger branch, placing himself so that his belly rested along its upper surface, with the legs hanging down on each side; and then, burying his proboscis in the long fur of his breast, and taking two or three turns of his tail around head, body, and legs, he fell fast asleep.
The old saw, that there is “many a slip between the cup and the lip,” is as true in the life of ant-eater as in that of a man; and when the tamandua awoke,—which it did some twenty minutes afterwards,—and looked down upon the dead-wood, it was astonished to discover that not a tocandeira was in sight.
What had become of them? When left by the tamandua to their own devices there were myriads still surviving. The few thousands which the devourer licked up had made no perceptible diminution in their numbers; and on the retiring of their enemy, they were swarming as thickly and countlessly as ever. Now not one was visible upon the log, the hue of which, from being of a flaming red, had returned to its original colour of sombre grey. A few were discovered upon the standing tree, crawling up its trunk and lower branches, with excited air and rapid movements, as if escaping from terrible disaster. These refugees did not amount to many hundreds; thinly scattered over the bark, they could have been counted. They were too few to tempt the hunger of the tamandua. It would not have been worth his while to project his slimy tongue for the sake of a single tocandeira; so he retained it—not behind his teeth, for he had none—but within the cylinder-shaped cavity of his mouth. What had become of the tocandeiras? It is possible that the tamandua mentally put this question to himself; for there is no animal, however humble its organisation, that has not been gifted by beneficent Nature with a mind and powers of reasoning,—ay, with moral perceptions of at least the primary principles of right and wrong, as even the little ant-eater gives evidence.