One day in 1908, when my presidential term was coming to a close,
Father Zahm, a priest whom I knew, came in to call on me. Father Zahm
and I had been cronies for some time, because we were both of us fond
of Dante and of history and of science--I had always commended to
theologians his book, "Evolution and Dogma." He was an Ohio boy, and
his early schooling had been obtained in old-time American fashion in
a little log school; where, by the way, one of the other boys was
Januarius Aloysius MacGahan, afterward the famous war correspondent
and friend of Skobeloff. Father Zahm told me that MacGahan even at
that time added an utter fearlessness to chivalric tenderness for the
weak, and was the defender of any small boy who was oppressed by a
larger one. Later Father Zahm was at Notre Dame University, in
Indiana, with Maurice Egan, whom, when I was President, I appointed
minister to Denmark.
On the occasion in question Father Zahm had just returned from a trip
across the Andes and down the Amazon, and came in to propose that
after I left the presidency he and I should go up the Paraguay into
the interior of South America. At the time I wished to go to Africa,
and so the subject was dropped; but from time to time afterward we
talked it over. Five years later, in the spring of 1913, I accepted
invitations conveyed through the governments of Argentina and Brazil
to address certain learned bodies in these countries. Then it occurred
to me that, instead of making the conventional tourist trip purely by
sea round South America, after I had finished my lectures I would come
north through the middle of the continent into the valley of the
Amazon; and I decided to write Father Zahm and tell him my intentions.
Before doing so, however, I desired to see the authorities of the
American Museum of Natural History, in New York City, to find out
whether they cared to have me take a couple of naturalists with me
into Brazil and make a collecting trip for the museum.
Accordingly, I wrote to Frank Chapman, the curator of ornithology of
the museum, and accepted his invitation to lunch at the museum one day
early in June. At the lunch, in addition to various naturalists, to my
astonishment I also found Father Zahm; and as soon as I saw him I told
him I was now intending to make the South American trip. It appeared
that he had made up his mind that he would take it himself, and had
actually come on to see Mr. Chapman to find out if the latter could
recommend a naturalist to go with him; and he at once said he would
accompany me. Chapman was pleased when he found out that we intended
to go up the Paraguay and across into the valley of the Amazon,
because much of the ground over which we were to pass had not been
covered by collectors. He saw Henry Fairfield Osborn, the president of
the museum, who wrote me that the museum would be pleased to send
under me a couple of naturalists, whom, with my approval, Chapman
would choose.
The men whom Chapman recommended were Messrs. George K. Cherrie and
Leo E. Miller. I gladly accepted both. The former was to attend
chiefly to the ornithology and the latter to the mammalogy of the
expedition; but each was to help out the other. No two better men for
such a trip could have been found. Both were veterans of the tropical
American forests. Miller was a young man, born in Indiana, an
enthusiastic with good literary as well as scientific training. He was
at the time in the Guiana forests, and joined us at Barbados. Cherrie
was an older man, born in Iowa, but now a farmer in Vermont. He had a
wife and six children. Mrs. Cherrie had accompanied him during two or
three years of their early married life in his collecting trips along
the Orinoco. Their second child was born when they were in camp a
couple of hundred miles from any white man or woman. One night a few
weeks later they were obliged to leave a camping-place, where they had
intended to spend the night, because the baby was fretful, and its
cries attracted a jaguar, which prowled nearer and nearer in the
twilight until they thought it safest once more to put out into the
open river and seek a new resting-place. Cherrie had spent about
twenty-two years collecting in the American tropics. Like most of the
field-naturalists I have met, he was an unusually efficient and
fearless man; and willy-nilly he had been forced at times to vary his
career by taking part in insurrections. Twice he had been behind the
bars in consequence, on one occasion spending three months in a prison
of a certain South American state, expecting each day to be taken out
and shot. In another state he had, as an interlude to his
ornithological pursuits, followed the career of a gun-runner, acting
as such off and on for two and a half years. The particular
revolutionary chief whose fortunes he was following finally came into
power, and Cherrie immortalized his name by naming a new species of
ant-thrush after him--a delightful touch, in its practical combination
of those not normally kindred pursuits, ornithology and gun-running.
In Anthony Fiala, a former arctic explorer, we found an excellent man
for assembling equipment and taking charge of its handling and
shipment. In addition to his four years in the arctic regions, Fiala
had served in the New York Squadron in Porto Rico during the Spanish
War, and through his service in the squadron had been brought into
contact with his little Tennessee wife. She came down with her four
children to say good-by to him when the steamer left. My secretary,
Mr. Frank Harper, went with us. Jacob Sigg, who had served three years
in the United States Army, and was both a hospital nurse and a cook,
as well as having a natural taste for adventure, went as the personal
attendant of Father Zahm. In southern Brazil my son Kermit joined me.
He had been bridge building, and a couple of months previously, while
on top of a long steel span, something went wrong with the derrick, he
and the steel span coming down together on the rocky bed beneath. He
escaped with two broken ribs, two teeth knocked out, and a knee
partially dislocated, but was practically all right again when he
started with us.
In its composition ours was a typical American expedition. Kermit and
I were of the old Revolutionary stock, and in our veins ran about
every strain of blood that there was on this side of the water during
colonial times. Cherrie's father was born in Ireland, and his mother
in Scotland; they came here when very young, and his father served
throughout the Civil War in an Iowa cavalry regiment. His wife was of
old Revolutionary stock. Father Zahm's father was an Alsacian
immigrant, and his mother was partly of Irish and partly of old
American stock, a descendant of a niece of General Braddock. Miller's
father came from Germany, and his mother from France. Fiala's father
and mother were both from Bohemia, being Czechs, and his father had
served four years in the Civil War in the Union Army--his Tennessee
wife was of old Revolutionary stock. Harper was born in England, and
Sigg in Switzerland. We were as varied in religious creed as in ethnic
origin. Father Zahm and Miller were Catholics, Kermit and Harper
Episcopalians, Cherrie a Presbyterian, Fiala a Baptist, Sigg a
Lutheran, while I belonged to the Dutch Reformed Church.
For arms the naturalists took 16-bore shotguns, one of Cherrie's
having a rifle barrel underneath. The firearms for the rest of the
party were supplied by Kermit and myself, including my Springfield
rifle, Kermit's two Winchesters, a 405 and 30-40, the Fox 12-gauge
shotgun, and another 16-gauge gun, and a couple of revolvers, a Colt
and a Smith & Wesson. We took from New York a couple of canvas canoes,
tents, mosquito-bars, plenty of cheesecloth, including nets for the
hats, and both light cots and hammocks. We took ropes and pulleys
which proved invaluable on our canoe trip. Each equipped himself with
the clothing he fancied. Mine consisted of khaki, such as I wore in
Africa, with a couple of United States Army flannel shirts and a
couple of silk shirts, one pair of hob-nailed shoes with leggings, and
one pair of laced leather boots coming nearly to the knee. Both the
naturalists told me that it was well to have either the boots or
leggings as a protection against snake-bites, and I also had gauntlets
because of the mosquitoes and sand-flies. We intended where possible
to live on what we could get from time to time in the country, but we
took some United States Army emergency rations, and also ninety cans,
each containing a day's provisions for five men, made up by Fiala.
The trip I proposed to take can be understood only if there is a
slight knowledge of South American topography. The great mountain
chain of the Andes extends down the entire length of the western
coast, so close to the Pacific Ocean that no rivers of any importance
enter it. The rivers of South America drain into the Atlantic.
Southernmost South America, including over half of the territory of
the Argentine Republic, consists chiefly of a cool, open plains
country. Northward of this country, and eastward of the Andes, lies
the great bulk of the South American continent, which is included in
the tropical and the subtropical regions. Most of this territory is
Brazilian. Aside from certain relatively small stretches drained by
coast rivers, this immense region of tropical and subtropical America
east of the Andes is drained by the three great river systems of the
Plate, the Amazon, and the Orinoco. At their headwaters the Amazon and
the Orinoco systems are actually connected by a sluggish natural
canal. The headwaters of the northern affluents of the Paraguay and
the southern affluents of the Amazon are sundered by a stretch of high
land, which toward the east broadens out into the central plateau of
Brazil. Geologically this is a very ancient region, having appeared
above the waters before the dawning of the age of reptiles, or,
indeed, of any true land vertebrates on the globe. This plateau is a
region partly of healthy, rather dry and sandy, open prairie, partly
of forest. The great and low-lying basin of the Paraguay, which
borders it on the south, is one of the largest, and the still greater
basin of the Amazon, which borders it on the north, is the very
largest of all the river basins of the earth.
In these basins, but especially in the basin of the Amazon, and thence
in most places northward to the Caribbean Sea, lie the most extensive
stretches of tropical forest to be found anywhere. The forests of
tropical West Africa, and of portions of the Farther-Indian region,
are the only ones that can be compared with them. Much difficulty has
been experienced in exploring these forests, because under the
torrential rains and steaming heat the rank growth of vegetation
becomes almost impenetrable, and the streams difficult of navigation;
while white men suffer much from the terrible insect scourges and the
deadly diseases which modern science has discovered to be due very
largely to insect bites. The fauna and flora, however, are of great
interest. The American Museum was particularly anxious to obtain
collections from the divide between the headwaters of the Paraguay and
the Amazon, and from the southern affluents of the Amazon. Our purpose
was to ascend the Paraguay as nearly as possible to the head of
navigation, thence cross to the sources of one of the affluents of the
Amazon, and if possible descend it in canoes built on the spot. The
Paraguay is regularly navigated as high as boats can go. The starting-
point for our trip was to be Asuncion, in the state of Paraguay.
My exact plan of operations was necessarily a little indefinite, but
on reaching Rio de Janeiro the minister of foreign affairs, Mr. Lauro
Muller, who had been kind enough to take great personal interest in my
trip, informed me that he had arranged that on the headwaters of the
Paraguay, at the town of Caceres, I would be met by a Brazilian Army
colonel, himself chiefly Indian by blood, Colonel Rondon. Colonel
Rondon has been for a quarter of a century the foremost explorer of
the Brazilian hinterland. He was at the time in Manaos, but his
lieutenants were in Caceres and had been notified that we were coming.
More important still, Mr. Lauro Muller--who is not only an efficient
public servant but a man of wide cultivation, with a quality about him
that reminded me of John Hay--offered to help me make my trip of much
more consequence than I had originally intended. He has taken a keen
interest in the exploration and development of the interior of Brazil,
and he believed that my expedition could be used as a means toward
spreading abroad a more general knowledge of the country. He told me
that he would co-operate with me in every way if I cared to undertake
the leadership of a serious expedition into the unexplored portion of
western Matto Grosso, and to attempt the descent of a river which
flowed nobody knew whither, but which the best-informed men believed
would prove to be a very big river, utterly unknown to geographers. I
eagerly and gladly accepted, for I felt that with such help the trip
could be made of much scientific value, and that a substantial
addition could be made to the geographical knowledge of one of the
least-known parts of South America. Accordingly, it was arranged that
Colonel Rondon and some assistants and scientists should meet me at or
below Corumba, and that we should attempt the descent of the river, of
which they had already come across the headwaters.
I had to travel through Brazil, Uruguay, the Argentine, and Chile for
six weeks to fulfil my speaking engagements. Fiala, Cherrie, Miller,
and Sigg left me at Rio, continuing to Buenos Aires in the boat in
which we had all come down from New York. From Buenos Aires they went
up the Paraguay to Corumba, where they awaited me. The two naturalists
went first, to do all the collecting that was possible; Fiala and Sigg
travelled more leisurely, with the heavy baggage.
Before I followed them I witnessed an incident worthy of note from the
standpoint of a naturalist, and of possible importance to us because
of the trip we were about to take. South America, even more than
Australia and Africa, and almost as much as India, is a country of
poisonous snakes. As in India, although not to the same degree, these
snakes are responsible for a very serious mortality among human
beings. One of the most interesting evidences of the modern advance in
Brazil is the establishment near Sao Paulo of an institution
especially for the study of these poisonous snakes, so as to secure
antidotes to the poison and to develop enemies to the snakes
themselves. We wished to take into the interior with us some bottles
of the anti-venom serum, for on such an expedition there is always a
certain danger from snakes. On one of his trips Cherrie had lost a
native follower by snake-bite. The man was bitten while out alone in
the forest, and, although he reached camp, the poison was already
working in him, so that he could give no intelligible account of what
had occurred, and he died in a short time.
Poisonous snakes are of several different families, but the most
poisonous ones, those which are dangerous to man, belong to the two
great families of the colubrine snakes and the vipers. Most of the
colubrine snakes are entirely harmless, and are the common snakes that
we meet everywhere. But some of them, the cobras for instance, develop
into what are on the whole perhaps the most formidable of all snakes.
The only poisonous colubrine snakes in the New World are the ring-
snakes, the coral-snakes of the genus elaps, which are found from the
extreme southern United States southward to the Argentine. These
coral-snakes are not vicious and have small teeth which cannot
penetrate even ordinary clothing. They are only dangerous if actually
trodden on by some one with bare feet or if seized in the hand. There
are harmless snakes very like them in color which are sometimes kept
as pets; but it behooves every man who keeps such a pet or who handles
such a snake to be very sure as to the genus to which it belongs.
The great bulk of the poisonous snakes of America, including all the
really dangerous ones, belong to a division of the widely spread
family of vipers which is known as the pit-vipers. In South America
these include two distinct subfamilies or genera--whether they are
called families, subfamilies, or genera would depend, I suppose,
largely upon the varying personal views of the individual describer on
the subject of herpetological nomenclature. One genus includes the
rattlesnakes, of which the big Brazilian species is as dangerous as
those of the southern United States. But the large majority of the
species and individuals of dangerous snakes in tropical America are
included in the genus lachecis. These are active, vicious, aggressive
snakes without rattles. They are exceedingly poisonous. Some of them
grow to a very large size, being indeed among the largest poisonous
snakes in the world--their only rivals in this respect being the
diamond rattlesnake of Florida, one of the African mambas, and the
Indian hamadryad, or snake-eating cobra. The fer-de-lance, so dreaded
in Martinique, and the equally dangerous bushmaster of Guiana are
included in this genus. A dozen species are known in Brazil, the
biggest one being identical with the Guiana bushmaster, and the most
common one, the jararaca, being identical, or practically identical
with the fer-de-lance. The snakes of this genus, like the rattlesnakes
and the Old World vipers and puff-adders, possess long poison-fangs
which strike through clothes or any other human garment except stout
leather. Moreover, they are very aggressive, more so than any other
snakes in the world, except possibly some of the cobras. As, in
addition, they are numerous, they are a source of really frightful
danger to scantily clad men who work in the fields and forests, or who
for any reason are abroad at night.
The poison of venomous serpents is not in the least uniform in its
quality. On the contrary, the natural forces--to use a term which is
vague, but which is as exact as our present-day knowledge permits--
that have developed in so many different families of snakes these
poisoned fangs have worked in two or three totally different fashions.
Unlike the vipers, the colubrine poisonous snakes have small fangs,
and their poison, though on the whole even more deadly, has entirely
different effects, and owes its deadliness to entirely different
qualities. Even within the same family there are wide differences. In
the jararaca an extraordinary quantity of yellow venom is spurted from
the long poison-fangs. This poison is secreted in large glands which,
among vipers, give the head its peculiar ace-of-spades shape. The
rattlesnake yields a much smaller quantity of white venom, but,
quantity for quantity, this white venom is more deadly. It is the
great quantity of venom injected by the long fangs of the jararaca,
the bushmaster, and their fellows that renders their bite so generally
fatal. Moreover, even between these two allied genera of pit-vipers,
the differences in the action of the poison are sufficiently marked to
be easily recognizable, and to render the most effective anti-venomous
serum for each slightly different from the other. However, they are
near enough alike to make this difference, in practice, of
comparatively small consequence. In practice the same serum can be
used to neutralize the effect of either, and, as will be seen later
on, the snake that is immune to one kind of venom is also immune to
the other.
But the effect of the venom of the poisonous colubrine snakes is
totally different from, although to the full as deadly as, the effect
of the poison of the rattlesnake or jararaca. The serum that is an
antidote as regards the colubrines. The animal that is immune to the
bite of one may not be immune to the bite of the other. The bite of a
cobra or other colubrine poisonous snake is more painful in its
immediate effects than is the bite of one of the big vipers. The
victim suffers more. There is a greater effect on the nerve-centres,
but less swelling of the wound itself, and, whereas the blood of the
rattlesnake's victim coagulates, the blood of the victim of an elapine
snake--that is, of one of the only poisonous American colubrines--
becomes watery and incapable of coagulation.
Snakes are highly specialized in every way, including their prey. Some
live exclusively on warm-blooded animals, on mammals, or birds. Some
live exclusively on batrachians, others only on lizards, a few only on
insects. A very few species live exclusively on other snakes. These
include one very formidable venomous snake, the Indian hamadryad, or
giant cobra, and several non-poisonous snakes. In Africa I killed a
small cobra which contained within it a snake but a few inches shorter
than itself; but, as far as I could find out, snakes were not the
habitual diet of the African cobras.
The poisonous snakes use their venom to kill their victims, and also
to kill any possible foe which they think menaces them. Some of them
are good-tempered, and only fight if injured or seriously alarmed.
Others are excessively irritable, and on rare occasions will even
attack of their own accord when entirely unprovoked and unthreatened.
On reaching Sao Paulo on our southward journey from Rio to Montevideo,
we drove out to the "Instituto Serumtherapico," designed for the study
of the effects of the venom of poisonous Brazilian snakes. Its
director is Doctor Vital Brazil, who has performed a most
extraordinary work and whose experiments and investigations are not
only of the utmost value to Brazil but will ultimately be recognized
as of the utmost value for humanity at large. I know of no institution
of similar kind anywhere. It has a fine modern building, with all the
best appliances, in which experiments are carried on with all kinds of
serpents, living and dead, with the object of discovering all the
properties of their several kinds of venom, and of developing various
anti-venom serums which nullify the effects of the different venoms.
Every effort is made to teach the people at large by practical
demonstration in the open field the lessons thus learned in the
laboratory. One notable result has been the diminution in the
mortality from snake-bites in the province of Sao Paulo.
In connection with his institute, and right by the laboratory, the
doctor has a large serpentarium, in which quantities of the common
poisonous and non-poisonous snakes are kept, and some of the rarer
ones. He has devoted considerable time to the effort to find out if
there are any natural enemies of the poisonous snakes of his country,
and he has discovered that the most formidable enemy of the many
dangerous Brazilian snakes is a non-poisonous, entirely harmless,
rather uncommon Brazilian snake, the mussurama. Of all the interesting
things the doctor showed us, by far the most interesting was the
opportunity of witnessing for ourselves the action of the mussurama
toward a dangerous snake.
The doctor first showed us specimens of the various important snakes,
poisonous and non-poisonous, in alcohol. Then he showed us
preparations of the different kinds of venom and of the different
anti-venom serums, presenting us with some of the latter for our use
on the journey. He has been able to produce two distinct kinds of
anti-venom serum, one to neutralize the virulent poison of the
rattlesnake's bite, the other to neutralize the poison of the
different snakes of the lachecis genus. These poisons are somewhat
different and moreover there appear to be some differences between the
poisons of the different species of lachecis; in some cases the poison
is nearly colorless, and in others, as in that of the jararaca, whose
poison I saw, it is yellow.
But the vital difference is that between all these poisons of the pit-
vipers and the poisons of the colubrine snakes, such as the cobra and
the coral-snake. As yet the doctor has not been able to develop an
anti-venom serum which will neutralize the poison of these colubrine
snakes. Practically this is a matter of little consequence in Brazil,
for the Brazilian coral-snakes are dangerous only when mishandled by
some one whose bare skin is exposed to the bite. The numerous
accidents and fatalities continually occurring in Brazil are almost
always to be laid to the account of the several species of lachecis
and the single species of rattlesnake.
Finally, the doctor took us into his lecture-room to show us how he
conducted his experiments. The various snakes were in boxes, on one
side of the room, under the care of a skilful and impassive assistant,
who handled them with the cool and fearless caution of the doctor
himself. The poisonous ones were taken out by means of a long-handled
steel hook. All that is necessary to do is to insert this under the
snake and lift him off the ground. He is not only unable to escape,
but he is unable to strike, for he cannot strike unless coiled so as
to give himself support and leverage. The table on which the snakes
are laid is fairly large and smooth, differing in no way from an
ordinary table.
There were a number of us in the room, including two or three
photographers. The doctor first put on the table a non-poisonous but
very vicious and truculent colubrine snake. It struck right and left
at us. Then the doctor picked it up, opened its mouth, and showed that
it had no fangs, and handed it to me. I also opened its mouth and
examined its teeth, and then put it down, whereupon, its temper having
been much ruffled, it struck violently at me two or three times. In
its action and temper this snake was quite as vicious as the most
irritable poisonous snakes. Yet it is entirely harmless. One of the
innumerable mysteries of nature which are at present absolutely
insoluble is why some snakes should be so vicious and others
absolutely placid and good-tempered.
After removing the vicious harmless snake, the doctor warned us to get
away from the table, and his attendant put on it, in succession, a
very big lachecis--of the kind called bushmaster--and a big
rattlesnake. Each coiled menacingly, a formidable brute ready to
attack anything that approached. Then the attendant adroitly dropped
his iron crook on the neck of each in succession, seized it right
behind the head, and held it toward the doctor. The snake's mouth was
in each case wide open, and the great fangs erect and very evident. It
would not have been possible to have held an African ring-necked cobra
in such fashion, because the ring-neck would have ejected its venom
through the fangs into the eyes of the onlookers. There was no danger
in this case, and the doctor inserted a shallow glass saucer into the
mouth of the snake behind the fangs, permitted it to eject its poison,
and then himself squeezed out the remaining poison from the poison-
bags through the fangs. From the big lachecis came a large quantity of
yellow venom, a liquid which speedily crystallized into a number of
minute crystals. The rattlesnake yielded a much less quantity of white
venom, which the doctor assured us was far more active than the yellow
lachecis venom. Then each snake was returned to its box unharmed.
After this the doctor took out of a box and presented to me a fine,
handsome, nearly black snake, an individual of the species called the
mussurama. This is in my eyes perhaps the most interesting serpent in
the world. It is a big snake, four or five feet long, sometimes even
longer, nearly black, lighter below, with a friendly, placid temper.
It lives exclusively on other snakes, and is completely immune to the
poison of the lachecis and rattlesnake groups, which contain all the
really dangerous snakes of America. Doctor Brazil told me that he had
conducted many experiments with this interesting snake. It is not very
common, and prefers wet places in which to live. It lays eggs, and the
female remains coiled above the eggs, the object being apparently not
to warm them, but to prevent too great evaporation. It will not eat
when moulting, nor in cold weather. Otherwise it will eat a small
snake every five or six days, or a big one every fortnight.
There is the widest difference, both among poisonous and non-poisonous
snakes, not alone in nervousness and irascibility but also in ability
to accustom themselves to out-of-the-way surroundings. Many species of
non-poisonous snakes which are entirely harmless, to man or to any
other animal except their small prey, are nevertheless very vicious
and truculent, striking right and left and biting freely on the
smallest provocation--this is the case with the species of which the
doctor had previously placed a specimen on the table. Moreover, many
snakes, some entirely harmless and some vicious ones, are so nervous
and uneasy that it is with the greatest difficulty they can be induced
to eat in captivity, and the slightest disturbance or interference
will prevent their eating. There are other snakes, however, of which
the mussurama is perhaps the best example, which are very good
captives, and at the same time very fearless, showing a complete
indifference not only to being observed but to being handled when they
are feeding.
There is in the United States a beautiful and attractive snake, the
king-snake, with much the same habits as the mussurama. It is friendly
toward mankind, and not poisonous, so that it can be handled freely.
It feeds on other serpents, and will kill a rattlesnake as big as
itself, being immune to the rattlesnake venom. Mr. Ditmars, of the
Bronx Zoo, has made many interesting experiments with these king-
snakes. I have had them in my own possession. They are good-natured
and can generally be handled with impunity, but I have known them to
bite, whereas Doctor Brazil informed me that it was almost impossible
to make the mussurama bite a man. The king-snake will feed greedily on
other snakes in the presence of man--I knew of one case where it
partly swallowed another snake while both were in a small boy's
pocket. It is immune to viper poison but it is not immune to colubrine
poison. A couple of years ago I was informed of a case where one of
these king-snakes was put into an enclosure with an Indian snake-
eating cobra or hamadryad of about the same size. It killed the cobra
but made no effort to swallow it, and very soon showed the effects of
the cobra poison. I believe it afterward died, but unfortunately I
have mislaid my notes and cannot now remember the details of the
incident.
Doctor Brazil informed me that the mussurama, like the king-snake, was
not immune to the colubrine poison. A mussurama in his possession,
which had with impunity killed and eaten several rattlesnakes and
representatives of the lachecis genus, also killed and ate a venomous
coral-snake, but shortly afterward itself died from the effects of the
poison. It is one of the many puzzles of nature that these American
serpents which kill poisonous serpents should only have grown immune
to the poison of the most dangerous American poisonous serpents, the
pit-vipers, and should not have become immune to the poison of the
coral-snakes which are commonly distributed throughout their range.
Yet, judging by the one instance mentioned by Doctor Brazil, they
attack and master these coral-snakes, although the conflict in the end
results in their death. It would be interesting to find out whether
this attack was exceptional, that is, whether the mussurama has or has
not as a species learned to avoid the coral-snake. If it was not
exceptional, then not only is the instance highly curious in itself,
but it would also go far to explain the failure of the mussurama to
become plentiful.
For the benefit of those who are not acquainted with the subject, I
may mention that the poison of a poisonous snake is not dangerous to
its own species unless injected in very large doses, about ten times
what would normally be injected by a bite; but that it is deadly to
all other snakes, poisonous or non-poisonous, save as regards the very
few species which themselves eat poisonous snakes. The Indian
hamadryad, or giant cobra, is exclusively a snake-eater. It evidently
draws a sharp distinction between poisonous and non-poisonous snakes,
for Mr. Ditmars has recorded that two individuals in the Bronx Zoo
which are habitually fed on harmless snakes, and attack them eagerly,
refused to attack a copperhead which was thrown into their cage, being
evidently afraid of this pit-viper. It would be interesting to find
out if the hamadryad is afraid to prey on all pit-vipers, and also
whether it will prey on its small relative, the true cobra--for it may
well be that, even if not immune to the viper poison, it is immune to
the poison of its close ally, the smaller cobra.
All these and many other questions would be speedily settled by Doctor
Brazil if he were given the opportunity to test them. It must be
remembered, moreover, that not only have his researches been of
absorbing value from the standpoint of pure science but that they also
have a real utilitarian worth. He is now collecting and breeding the
mussurama. The favorite prey of the mussurama is the most common and
therefore the most dangerous poisonous snake of Brazil, the jararaca,
which is known in Martinique as the fer-de-lance. In Martinique and
elsewhere this snake is such an object of terror as to be at times a
genuine scourge. Surely it would be worth while for the authorities of
Martinique to import specimens of the mussurama to that island. The
mortality from snake-bite in British India is very great. Surely it
would be well worth while for the able Indian Government to copy
Brazil and create such an institute as that over which Doctor Vital
Brazil is the curator.
At first sight it seems extraordinary that poisonous serpents, so
dreaded by and so irresistible to most animals, should be so utterly
helpless before the few creatures that prey on them. But the
explanation is easy. Any highly specialized creature, the higher its
specialization, is apt to be proportionately helpless when once its
peculiar specialized traits are effectively nullified by an opponent.
This is eminently the case with the most dangerous poisonous snakes.
In them a highly peculiar specialization has been carried to the
highest point. They rely for attack and defence purely on their
poison-fangs. All other means and methods of attack and defence have
atrophied. They neither crush nor tear with their teeth nor constrict
with their bodies. The poison-fangs are slender and delicate, and,
save for the poison, the wound inflicted is of a trivial character. In
consequence they are helpless in the presence of any animal which the
poison does not affect. There are several mammals immune to snake-
bite, including various species of hedgehog, pig, and mongoose--the
other mammals which kill them do so by pouncing on them unawares or by
avoiding their stroke through sheer quickness of movement; and
probably this is the case with most snake-eating birds. The mongoose
is very quick, but in some cases at least--I have mentioned one in the
"African Game Trails"--it permits itself to be bitten by poisonous
snakes, treating the bite with utter indifference. There should be
extensive experiments made to determine if there are species of
mongoose immune to both cobra and viper poison. Hedgehogs, as
determined by actual experiments, pay no heed at all to viper poison
even when bitten on such tender places as the tongue and lips and eat
the snake as if it were a radish. Even among animals which are not
immune to the poison different species are very differently affected
by the different kinds of snake poisons. Not only are some species
more resistant than others to all poisons, but there is a wide
variation in the amount of immunity each displays to any given venom.
One species will be quickly killed by the poison from one species of
snake, and be fairly resistant to the poison of another; whereas in
another species the conditions may be directly reversed.
The mussurama which Doctor Brazil handed me was a fine specimen,
perhaps four and a half feet long. I lifted the smooth, lithe bulk in
my hands, and then let it twist its coils so that it rested at ease in
my arms; it glided to and fro, on its own length, with the sinuous
grace of its kind, and showed not the slightest trace of either
nervousness or bad temper. Meanwhile the doctor bade his attendant put
on the table a big jararaca, or fer-de-lance, which was accordingly
done. The jararaca was about three feet and a half, or perhaps nearly
four feet long--that is, it was about nine inches shorter than the
mussurama. The latter, which I continued to hold in my arms, behaved
with friendly and impassive indifference, moving easily to and fro
through my hands, and once or twice hiding its head between the sleeve
and the body of my coat. The doctor was not quite sure how the
mussurama would behave, for it had recently eaten a small snake, and
unless hungry it pays no attention whatever to venomous snakes, even
when they attack and bite it. However, it fortunately proved still to
have a good appetite.
The jararaca was alert and vicious. It partly coiled itself on the
table, threatening the bystanders. I put the big black serpent down on
the table four or five feet from the enemy and headed in its
direction. As soon as I let go with my hands it glided toward where
the threatening, formidable-looking lance-head lay stretched in a half
coil. The mussurama displayed not the slightest sign of excitement.
Apparently it trusted little to its eyes, for it began to run its head
along the body of the jararaca, darting out its flickering tongue to
feel just where it was, as it nosed its way up toward the head of its
antagonist. So placid were its actions that I did not at first suppose
that it meant to attack, for there was not the slightest exhibition of
anger or excitement.
It was the jararaca that began the fight. It showed no fear whatever
of its foe, but its irritable temper was aroused by the proximity and
actions of the other, and like a flash it drew back its head and
struck, burying its fangs in the forward part of the mussurama's body.
Immediately the latter struck in return, and the counter-attack was so
instantaneous that it was difficult to see just what had happened.
There was tremendous writhing and struggling on the part of the
jararaca; and then, leaning over the knot into which the two serpents
were twisted, I saw that the mussurama had seized the jararaca by the
lower jaw, putting its own head completely into the wide-gaping mouth
of the poisonous snake. The long fangs were just above the top of the
mussurama's head; and it appeared, as well as I could see, that they
were once again driven into the mussurama; but without the slightest
effect. Then the fangs were curved back in the jaw, a fact which I
particularly noted, and all effort at the offensive was abandoned by
the poisonous snake.
Meanwhile the mussurama was chewing hard, and gradually shifted its
grip, little by little, until it got the top of the head of the
jararaca in its mouth, the lower jaw of the jararaca being spread out
to one side. The venomous serpent was helpless; the fearsome master of
the wild life of the forest, the deadly foe of humankind, was itself
held in the grip of death. Its cold, baleful serpent's eyes shone, as
evil as ever. But it was dying. In vain it writhed and struggled.
Nothing availed it.
Once or twice the mussurama took a turn round the middle of the body
of its opponent, but it did not seem to press hard, and apparently
used its coils chiefly in order to get a better grip so as to crush
the head of its antagonist, or to hold the latter in place. This
crushing was done by its teeth; and the repeated bites were made with
such effort that the muscles stood out on the mussurama's neck. Then
it took two coils round the neck of the jararaca and proceeded
deliberately to try to break the backbone of its opponent by twisting
the head round. With this purpose it twisted its own head and neck
round so that the lighter-colored surface was uppermost; and indeed at
one time it looked as if it had made almost a complete single spiral
revolution of its own body. It never for a moment relaxed its grip
except to shift slightly the jaws.
In a few minutes the jararaca was dead, its head crushed in, although
the body continued to move convulsively. When satisfied that its
opponent was dead, the mussurama began to try to get the head in its
mouth. This was a process of some difficulty on account of the angle
at which the lower jaw of the jararaca stuck out. But finally the head
was taken completely inside and then swallowed. After this, the
mussurama proceeded deliberately, but with unbroken speed, to devour
its opponent by the simple process of crawling outside it, the body
and tail of the jararaca writhing and struggling until the last.
During the early portion of the meal, the mussurama put a stop to this
writhing and struggling by resting its own body on that of its prey;
but toward the last the part of the body that remained outside was
left free to wriggle as it wished.
Not only was the mussurama totally indifferent to our presence, but it
was totally indifferent to being handled while the meal was going on.
Several times I replaced the combatants in the middle of the table
when they had writhed to the edge, and finally, when the photographers
found that they could not get good pictures, I held the mussurama up
against a white background with the partially swallowed snake in its
mouth; and the feast went on uninterruptedly. I never saw cooler or
more utterly unconcerned conduct; and the ease and certainty with
which the terrible poisonous snake was mastered gave me the heartiest
respect and liking for the easy-going, good-natured, and exceedingly
efficient serpent which I had been holding in my arms.
Our trip was not intended as a hunting-trip but as a scientific
expedition. Before starting on the trip itself, while travelling in
the Argentine, I received certain pieces of first-hand information
concerning the natural history of the jaguar, and of the cougar, or
puma, which are worth recording. The facts about the jaguar are not
new in the sense of casting new light on its character, although they
are interesting; but the facts about the behavior of the puma in one
district of Patagonia are of great interest, because they give an
entirely new side of its life-history.
There was travelling with me at the time Doctor Francisco P. Moreno,
of Buenos Aires. Doctor Moreno is at the present day a member of the
National Board of Education of the Argentine, a man who has worked in
every way for the benefit of his country, perhaps especially for the
benefit of the children, so that when he was first introduced to me it
was as the "Jacob Riis of the Argentine"--for they know my deep and
affectionate intimacy with Jacob Riis. He is also an eminent man of
science, who has done admirable work as a geologist and a geographer.
At one period, in connection with his duties as a boundary
commissioner on the survey between Chile and the Argentine, he worked
for years in Patagonia. It was he who made the extraordinary discovery
in a Patagonian cave of the still fresh fragments of skin and other
remains of the mylodon, the aberrant horse known as the onohipidium,
the huge South American tiger, and the macrauchenia, all of them
extinct animals. This discovery showed that some of the strange
representatives of the giant South American Pleistocene fauna had
lasted down to within a comparatively few thousand years, down to the
time when man, substantially as the Spaniards found him, flourished on
the continent. Incidentally the discovery tended to show that this
fauna had lasted much later in South America than was the case with
the corresponding faunas in other parts of the world; and therefore it
tended to disprove the claims advanced by Doctor Ameghino for the
extreme age, geologically, of this fauna, and for the extreme
antiquity of man on the American continent.
One day Doctor Moreno handed me a copy of The Outlook containing my
account of a cougar-hunt in Arizona, saying that he noticed that I had
very little faith in cougars attacking men, although I had explicitly
stated that such attacks sometimes occurred. I told him, Yes, that I
had found that the cougar was practically harmless to man, the
undoubtedly authentic instances of attacks on men being so exceptional
that they could in practice be wholly disregarded. Thereupon Doctor
Moreno showed me a scar on his face, and told me that he had himself
been attacked and badly mauled by a puma which was undoubtedly trying
to prey on him; that is, which had started on a career as a man-eater.
This was to me most interesting. I had often met men who knew other
men who had seen other men who said that they had been attacked by
pumas, but this was the first time that I had ever come across a man
who had himself been attacked. Doctor Moreno, as I have said, is not
only an eminent citizen, but an eminent scientific man, and his
account of what occurred is unquestionably a scientifically accurate
statement of the facts. I give it exactly as the doctor told it;
paraphrasing a letter he sent me, and including one or two answers to
questions I put to him. The doctor, by the way, stated to me that he
had known Mr. Hudson, the author of the "Naturalist on the Plata," and
that the latter knew nothing whatever of pumas from personal
experience and had accepted as facts utterly wild fables.
Undoubtedly, said the doctor, the puma in South America, like the puma
in North America, is, as a general rule, a cowardly animal which not
only never attacks man, but rarely makes any efficient defence when
attacked. The Indian and white hunters have no fear of it in most
parts of the country, and its harmlessness to man is proverbial. But
there is one particular spot in southern Patagonia where cougars, to
the doctor's own personal knowledge, have for years been dangerous
foes of man. This curious local change in habits, by the way, is
nothing unprecedented as regards wild animals. In portions of its
range, as I am informed by Mr. Lord Smith, the Asiatic tiger can
hardly be forced to fight man, and never preys on him, while
throughout most of its range it is a most dangerous beast, and often
turns man-eater. So there are waters in which sharks are habitual man-
eaters, and others where they never touch men; and there are rivers
and lakes where crocodiles or caymans are very dangerous, and others
where they are practically harmless--I have myself seen this in
Africa.
In March, 1877, Doctor Moreno with a party of men working on the
boundary commission, and with a number of Patagonian horse-Indians,
was encamped for some weeks beside Lake Viedma, which had not before
been visited by white men for a century, and which was rarely visited
even by Indians. One morning, just before sunrise, he left his camp by
the south shore of the lake, to make a topographical sketch of the
lake. He was unarmed, but carried a prismatic compass in a leather
case with a strap. It was cold, and he wrapped his poncho of guanaco-
hide round his neck and head. He had walked a few hundred yards, when
a puma, a female, sprang on him from behind and knocked him down. As
she sprang on him she tried to seize his head with one paw, striking
him on the shoulder with the other. She lacerated his mouth and also
his back, but tumbled over with him, and in the scuffle they separated
before she could bite him. He sprang to his feet, and, as he said, was
forced to think quickly. She had recovered herself, and sat on her
haunches like a cat, looking at him, and then crouched to spring
again; whereupon he whipped off his poncho, and as she sprang at him
he opened it, and at the same moment hit her head with the prismatic
compass in its case which he held by the strap. She struck the poncho
and was evidently puzzled by it, for, turning, she slunk off to one
side, under a bush, and then proceeded to try to get round behind him.
He faced her, keeping his eyes upon her, and backed off. She followed
him for three or four hundred yards. At least twice she came up to
attack him, but each time he opened his poncho and yelled, and at the
last moment she shrank back. She continually, however, tried, by
taking advantage of cover, to sneak up to one side, or behind, to
attack him. Finally, when he got near camp, she abandoned the pursuit
and went into a small patch of bushes. He raised the alarm; an Indian
rode up and set fire to the bushes from the windward side. When the
cougar broke from the bushes, the Indian rode after her, and threw his
bolas, which twisted around her hind legs; and while she was
struggling to free herself, he brained her with his second bolas. The
doctor's injuries were rather painful, but not serious.
Twenty-one years later, in April, 1898, he was camped on the same
lake, but on the north shore, at the foot of a basaltic cliff. He was
in company with four soldiers, with whom he had travelled from the
Strait of Magellan. In the night he was aroused by the shriek of a man
and the barking of his dogs. As the men sprang up from where they were
lying asleep they saw a large puma run off out of the firelight into
the darkness. It had sprung on a soldier named Marcelino Huquen while
he was asleep, and had tried to carry him off. Fortunately, the man
was so wrapped up in his blanket, as the night was cold, that he was
not injured. The puma was never found or killed.
About the same time a surveyor of Doctor Moreno's party, a Swede named
Arneberg, was attacked in similar fashion. The doctor was not with him
at the time. Mr. Arneberg was asleep in the forest near Lake San
Martin. The cougar both bit and clawed him, and tore his mouth,
breaking out three teeth. The man was rescued; but this puma also
escaped.
The doctor stated that in this particular locality the Indians, who
elsewhere paid no heed whatever to the puma, never let their women go
out after wood for fuel unless two or three were together. This was
because on several occasions women who had gone out alone were killed
by pumas. Evidently in this one locality the habit of at least
occasional man-eating has become chronic with a species which
elsewhere is the most cowardly, and to man the least dangerous, of all
the big cats.
These observations of Doctor Moreno have a peculiar value, because, as
far as I know, they are the first trustworthy accounts of a cougar's
having attacked man save under circumstances so exceptional as to make
the attack signify little more than the similar exceptional instances
of attack by various other species of wild animals that are not
normally dangerous to man.
The jaguar, however, has long been known not only to be a dangerous
foe when itself attacked, but also now and then to become a man-eater.
Therefore the instances of such attacks furnished me are of merely
corroborative value.
In the excellent zoological gardens at Buenos Aires the curator,
Doctor Onelli, a naturalist of note, showed us a big male jaguar which
had been trapped in the Chaco, where it had already begun a career as
a man-eater, having killed three persons. They were killed, and two of
them were eaten; the animal was trapped, in consequence of the alarm
excited by the death of his third victim. This jaguar was very savage;
whereas a young jaguar, which was in a cage with a young tiger, was
playful and friendly, as was also the case with the young tiger. On my
trip to visit La Plata Museum I was accompanied by Captain Vicente
Montes, of the Argentine Navy, an accomplished officer of scientific
attainments. He had at one time been engaged on a survey of the
boundary between the Argentine and Parana and Brazil. They had a
quantity of dried beef in camp. On several occasions a jaguar came
into camp after this dried beef. Finally they succeeded in protecting
it so that he could not reach it. The result, however, was disastrous.
On the next occasion that he visited camp, at midnight, he seized a
man. Everybody was asleep at the time, and the jaguar came in so
noiselessly as to elude the vigilance of the dogs. As he seized the
man, the latter gave one yell, but the next moment was killed, the
jaguar driving his fangs through the man's skull into the brain. There
was a scene of uproar and confusion, and the jaguar was forced to drop
his prey and flee into the woods. Next morning they followed him with
the dogs, and finally killed him. He was a large male, in first-class
condition. The only features of note about these two incidents was
that in each case the man-eater was a powerful animal in the prime of
life; whereas it frequently happens that the jaguars that turn man-
eaters are old animals, and have become too inactive or too feeble to
catch their ordinary prey.
During the two months before starting from Asuncion, in Paraguay, for
our journey into the interior, I was kept so busy that I had scant
time to think of natural history. But in a strange land a man who
cares for wild birds and wild beasts always sees and hears something
that is new to him and interests him. In the dense tropical woods near
Rio Janeiro I heard in late October--springtime, near the southern
tropic--the songs of many birds that I could not identify. But the
most beautiful music was from a shy woodland thrush, sombre-colored,
which lived near the ground in the thick timber, but sang high among
the branches. At a great distance we could hear the ringing, musical,
bell-like note, long-drawn and of piercing sweetness, which occurs at
intervals in the song; at first I thought this was the song, but when
it was possible to approach the singer I found that these far-sounding
notes were scattered through a continuous song of great melody. I
never listened to one that impressed me more. In different places in
Argentina I heard and saw the Argentine mocking-bird, which is not
very unlike our own, and is also a delightful and remarkable singer.
But I never heard the wonderful white-banded mocking-bird, which is
said by Hudson, who knew well the birds of both South America and
Europe, to be the song-king of them all.
Most of the birds I thus noticed while hurriedly passing through the
country were, of course, the conspicuous ones. The spurred lapwings,
big, tame, boldly marked plover, were everywhere; they were very noisy
and active and both inquisitive and daring, and they have a very
curious dance custom. No man need look for them. They will look for
him, and when they find him they will fairly yell the discovery to the
universe. In the marshes of the lower Parana I saw flocks of scarlet-
headed blackbirds on the tops of the reeds; the females are as
strikingly colored as the males, and their jet-black bodies and
brilliant red heads make it impossible for them to escape observation
among their natural surroundings. On the plains to the west I saw
flocks of the beautiful rose-breasted starlings; unlike the red-headed
blackbirds, which seemed fairly to court attention, these starlings
sought to escape observation by crouching on the ground so that their
red breasts were hidden. There were yellow-shouldered blackbirds in
wet places, and cow-buntings abounded.
But the most conspicuous birds I saw were members of the family of
tyrant flycatchers, of which our own king-bird is the most familiar
example. This family is very numerously represented in Argentina, both
in species and individuals. Some of the species are so striking, both
in color and habits, and in one case also in shape, as to attract the
attention of even the unobservant. The least conspicuous, and
nevertheless very conspicuous, among those that I saw was the
bientevido, which is brown above, yellow beneath, with a boldly marked
black and white head, and a yellow crest. It is very noisy, is common
in the neighborhood of houses, and builds a big domed nest. It is
really a big, heavy kingbird, fiercer and more powerful than any
northern kingbird. I saw them assail not only the big but the small
hawks with fearlessness, driving them in headlong flight. They not
only capture insects, but pounce on mice, small frogs, lizards, and
little snakes, rob birds' nests of the fledgling young, and catch
tadpoles and even small fish.
Two of the tyrants which I observed are like two with which I grew
fairly familiar in Texas. The scissor-tail is common throughout the
open country, and the long tail feathers, which seem at times to
hamper its flight, attract attention whether the bird is in flight or
perched on a tree. It has a habit of occasionally soaring into the air
and descending in loops and spirals. The scarlet tyrant I saw in the
orchards and gardens. The male is a fascinating little bird, coal-
black above, while his crested head and the body beneath are brilliant
scarlet. He utters his rapid, low-voiced musical trill in the air,
rising with fluttering wings to a height of a hundred feet, hovering
while he sings, and then falling back to earth. The color of the bird
and the character of his performance attract the attention of every
observer, bird, beast, or man, within reach of vision.
The red-backed tyrant is utterly unlike any of his kind in the United
States, and until I looked him up in Sclater and Hudson's ornithology
I never dreamed that he belonged to this family. He--for only the male
is so brightly colored--is coal-black with a dull-red back. I saw
these birds on December 1 near Barilloche, out on the bare Patagonian
plains. They behaved like pipits or longspurs, running actively over
the ground in the same manner and showing the same restlessness and
the same kind of flight. But whereas pipits are inconspicuous, the
red-backs at once attracted attention by the contrast between their
bold coloring and the grayish or yellowish tones of the ground along
which they ran. The silver-bill tyrant, however, is much more
conspicuous; I saw it in the same neighborhood as the red-back and
also in many other places. The male is jet-black, with white bill and
wings. He runs about on the ground like a pipit, but also frequently
perches on some bush to go through a strange flight-song performance.
He perches motionless, bolt upright, and even then his black coloring
advertises him for a quarter of a mile round about. But every few
minutes he springs up into the air to the height of twenty or thirty
feet, the white wings flashing in contrast to the black body, screams
and gyrates, and then instantly returns to his former post and resumes
his erect pose of waiting. It is hard to imagine a more conspicuous
bird than the silver-bill; but the next and last tyrant flycatcher of
which I shall speak possesses on the whole the most advertising
coloration of any small bird I have ever seen in the open country, and
moreover this advertising coloration exists in both sexes and
throughout the year. It is a brilliant white, all over, except the
long wing-quills and the ends of the tail-feathers, which are black.
The first one I saw, at a very long distance, I thought must be an
albino. It perches on the top of a bush or tree watching for its prey,
and it shines in the sun like a silver mirror. Every hawk, cat, or man
must see it; no one can help seeing it.
These common Argentine birds, most of them of the open country, and
all of them with a strikingly advertising coloration, are interesting
because of their beauty and their habits. They are also interesting
because they offer such illuminating examples of the truth that many
of the most common and successful birds not merely lack a concealing
coloration, but possess a coloration which is in the highest degree
revealing. The coloration and the habits of most of these birds are
such that every hawk or other foe that can see at all must have its
attention attracted to them. Evidently in their cases neither the
coloration nor any habit of concealment based on the coloration is a
survival factor, and this although they live in a land teeming with
bird-eating hawks. Among the higher vertebrates there are many known
factors which have influence, some in one set of cases, some in
another set of cases, in the development and preservation of species.
Courage, intelligence, adaptability, prowess, bodily vigor, speed,
alertness, ability to hide, ability to build structures which will
protect the young while they are helpless, fecundity--all, and many
more like them, have their several places; and behind all these
visible causes there are at work other and often more potent causes of
which as yet science can say nothing. Some species owe much to a given
attribute which may be wholly lacking in influence on other species;
and every one of the attributes above enumerated is a survival factor
in some species, while in others it has no survival value whatever,
and in yet others, although of benefit, it is not of sufficient
benefit to offset the benefit conferred on foes or rivals by totally
different attributes. Intelligence, for instance, is of course a
survival factor; but to-day there exist multitudes of animals with
very little intelligence which have persisted through immense periods
of geologic time either unchanged or else without any change in the
direction of increased intelligence; and during their species-life
they have witnessed the death of countless other species of far
greater intelligence but in other ways less adapted to succeed in the
environmental complex. The same statement can be made of all the many,
many other known factors in development, from fecundity to concealing
coloration; and behind them lie forces as to which we veil our
ignorance by the use of high-sounding nomenclature--as when we use
such a convenient but far from satisfactory term as orthogenesis.