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wandering about at night, is much tormented by the foxes
yelping as they follow him. This is a curious coincidence
ivith the fact which is generally affirmed of the jackals accompanying,
in a similarly officious manner, tlie East Indian
tiger. The jaguar is a noisy animal, roaring much by night,
and especially before bad iveather.
One day, when hunting on the banks of the Uruguay, I
was shown certain trees, to which these animals are
said constantly to recur, for the purpose of sharpening
their claws. I saw three well-known trees; in front the
bark was worn smooth, and on each side there were deep
scratches, or rather grooves, extending in an oblique line,
nearly a yard in length. The scars were of different ages. A
common method of ascertaining whether a jaguar is in the
neighbourhood, is to examine these trees. I imagine this
habit of the jaguar is exactly similar to one, which may any day
be seen in the common cat, as with outstretched legs and ex-
serted claws it scrapes the leg of a chair. Some such habit
must he also common to the puma, for on the bare hard soil
of Patagonia I have frequently seen scores so deep, that no
other animal could have made them. The object of this
practice is, 1 should think, to blunt rather than to sharpen
(as the Gauchos say), the points of their claws, which are so
seldom used. The jaguar is killed, without much difficulty,
by the aid of dogs baying and driving him up a tree, where
he is despatched with liullets.
Owing to bad weather we remained two days at our
moorings. Our only amusement was catching fish for our
dinner: there were several kinds, and all good eating. A
fish called the “ armado” (a Silurus), is remarkable from a
harsh grating noise it makes when caught by hook and line,
and which can be distinctly heard when the fish is beneath
the water. This same fish has the power of firmly catching
hold of any object, such as the blade of an oar or the fishing-
line, with the strong spine both of its pectoral and dorsal fin.
In the evening the weather was quite tropical, the thermometer
standing at 79°- Numbers of fireflies were hovering about.
and the musquitoes were very troublesome. I exposed my
h.and for five minutes, and it was soon black with them; I
do not sujipose there could have been less than fifty, all busy
sucking.
O c t o b e r 1 5 t i i .—We got under way and passed Punta
Gorda, where there is a colony of tame Indians, from the
province of Missiones. We sailed rapidly down the current,
but before sunset, from a silly fear of bad weather, we brought
to in a narrow arm of the river. I took the boat and rowed
some distance up this creek. It was very narrow, winding,
and deep; on each side, a wall thirty or forty feet high,
formed by trees intwined with creepers, gave to the canal a
singularly gloomy appearance. I here saw a very extraordinary
bird, called the Scissor-beak (Rhyncops nigra). It
has short legs, web feet, extremely long-pointed wings, and is
of about the size of a tern. The beak is flattened laterally,
that is, in a plane at right angles to that of a spoonbill,
or duck. It is as flat and elastic as an ivory paper-
cutter, and the lower mandible, differently from every other
bird, is an inch and a half longer than the upper. I will here
detail all I know of the habits of the scissor-beak. It is found
both on the east and west coasts, between lat. 30° and 4 5 °,
and frequents either salt or fresh water. The specimen now
at the Zoological Society was shot at a lake near Maldonado,
from which the water had been nearly drained, and which,
in consequence, swarmed with small fry. I there saw several
of these birds, generally in small flocks', flying backwards and
forwards, close to the surface of the lake. They kept their
bills wide open, and with the lower mandible half buried in
the water. Thus skimming the surface, they ploughed it in
their course: the water was quite smooth, and it formed a
most curious spectacle to behold a flock, each bird leaving its
narrow wake on the mirror-like surface. In their flight they
frequently tivist about with extreme rapidity, and'’so dexterously
manage, that with their projecting lower mandible
they plough up small fish, which arc secured by the upper
half of their scissor-like lulls. This fact 1 repeatedly saw, as,
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