ANIMALS OF BRITISH GUIANA.
C. BARRINGTON BROWN.
[British Guiana, the land which seems so strongly inclined to extend its borders at the expense of Venezuela, is as yet very far from being the active and well-developed settlement which might be imagined from the aggressiveness of its rulers. Mr. Brown’s story of it indicates a land of which nature is still largely the lord, and which is so little known that he, as late as twenty years ago, was able to discover a river and a cataract not previously heard of. The selection we append, descriptive of the wild animals of the country, is significant of an undeveloped land. Mr. Brown, in his “Canoe and Camp Life in British Guiana,” describes a number of unsuccessful efforts to shoot jaguars, and continues:]
One of the men happened to go a few yards behind one of our camping-places, when he heard a movement behind him; turning round he saw a jaguar leisurely surveying him. He fled to the camp with his story, and I went in search of the animal accompanied by one man armed with a cutlass. We did not go far before we saw its tracks in the sandy bed of a dry water-course, and concluded that it had gone off. We gave up all hopes of seeing it, and, turning round, were on the point of making our way back to camp, when my companion suddenly exclaimed, “Look! look! the tiger!” Glancing at the spot indicated I saw it crouching in a thicket with its head bent down, its body swaying from side to side, glaring at us with eyes of a greenish metallic hue. The brute had evidently been following us whilst we were searching for it, and was working itself into a rage. I took as good aim at its head as I could, and fired; but instead of seeing it lying dead, I heard it bounding and crashing through the forest at a fearful pace.
One of my men got a shot at a jaguar on a sand-beach, where it passed within twenty feet of him, as he crouched on some rocks. The only effect the shot had on the animal was to make it gallop away a few yards, then turn for an instant and look at him. The men whom I left in charge on the New River cut open a hollow log containing young accouries, and took them out. Their squeals on being seized attracted a puma, which ran close up to the men, apparently wishing to get the accouries, when one of them fired at it and it made off.
One evening, whilst returning to camp along the portage path that we were cutting at Wonobobo Falls, I walked faster than the men, and got some two hundred yards in advance. As I rose the slope of an uneven piece of ground, I saw a large puma (Felis concolor) advancing along the other side of the rise towards me, with its nose down on the ground. The moment I saw it I stopped; and at the same instant it tossed up its head, and seeing me also came to a stand. With its body half crouched, its head erect, and its eyes round and black, from its pupils having expanded in the dusky light, it looked at once a noble and appalling sight. I glanced back along our wide path to see if any of my men were coming, as at the moment I felt that it was not well to be alone without some weapon of defence, and I knew that one of them had a gun; but nothing could I see. As long as I did not move the puma remained motionless also, and thus we stood some fifteen yards apart, eying each other curiously. I had heard that the human voice is potent in scaring most wild beasts, and feeling that the time had arrived to do something desperate, I waved my arms in the air and shouted loudly. The effect on the tiger was electrical; it turned quickly on one side, and in two bounds was lost in the forest. I waited until my men came up, however, before passing the place at which it disappeared in case it might only be lying in ambush there; but we saw nothing more of it.
When returning down the portage and dragging our boats over, we saw a jaguar sitting on a log near the same spot, watching our movements with evident curiosity, and although the men were singing as they hauled the boats along, it did not seem to mind the noise. As soon as it saw that it was observed, it jumped off the log, and with a low growl made off. From this I infer that the flight of my puma must have been owing more to the windmill-like motion of my arms than to my voice.
During our journey across from the New River to the Essequebo, we were cooking breakfast one morning, when we heard a tremendous rushing and crashing noise coming towards us through the forest, and then caught a glimpse of an accourie flying for dear life before a black tiger. Just after they passed the accourie gave a heart-rending scream as the tiger seized it, but on my men rushing up to the spot, the tiger left its prey and fled. When picked up the accourie was quite dead, but on examination showed no marks whatever of the tiger’s teeth. The tiger had evidently killed it by springing upon it with its legs close together, the weight of its body giving such a blow that the accourie’s life was fairly knocked out. The men found its dead body just beyond a large log, slightly raised from the ground, under which it had bolted and lost some headway, while the cunning tiger took the log in its stride and so came, as it intended, on the poor accourie’s back, with the result we have seen.
On returning to the head of the New River for provisions, we were followed for many miles by a tiger, for on going back we saw its huge tracks in the swampy places on our path.