On Every Island There Were Tracks; And As On The
Former Excursion "El Rastro De Los Indios" Had Been The
Subject of conversation, so in this was "el rastro del tigre."
The wooded banks of the great rivers appear to
Be the
favourite haunts of the jaguar; but south of the Plata, I
was told that they frequented the reeds bordering lakes:
wherever they are, they seem to require water. Their common
prey is the capybara, so that it is generally said, where
capybaras are numerous there is little danger from the
jaguar. Falconer states that near the southern side of the
mouth of the Plata there are many jaguars, and that they
chiefly live on fish; this account I have heard repeated. On
the Parana they have killed many wood-cutters, and have
even entered vessels at night. There is a man now living
in the Bajada, who, coming up from below when it was
dark, was seized on the deck; he escaped, however, with
the loss of the use of one arm. When the floods drive these
animals from the islands, they are most dangerous. I was
told that a few years since a very large one found its way
into a church at St. Fe: two padres entering one after the
other were killed, and a third, who came to see what was the
matter, escaped with difficulty. The beast was destroyed by
being shot from a corner of the building which was unroofed.
They commit also at these times great ravages
among cattle and horses. It is said that they kill their prey
by breaking their necks. If driven from the carcass, they
seldom return to it. The Gauchos say that the jaguar, when
wandering about at night, is much tormented by the foxes
yelping as they follow him. This is a curious coincidence
with the fact which is generally affirmed of the jackals
accompanying, in a similarly officious manner, the East Indian
tiger. The jaguar is a noisy animal, roaring much by night,
and especially before bad weather.
One day, when hunting on the banks of the Uruguay, I
was shown certain trees, to which these animals constantly
recur for the purpose, as it is said, of sharpening their
claws. I saw three well-known trees; in front, the bark
was worn smooth, as if by the breast of the animal, 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 exserted claws it
scrapes the leg of a chair; and I have heard of young fruit-
trees in an orchard in England having been thus much injured.
Some such habit must also be 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, I believe, to tear off
the ragged points of their claws, and not, as the Gauchos
think, to sharpen them. The jaguar is killed, without much
difficulty, by the aid of dogs baying and driving him up a
tree, where he is despatched with bullets.
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 which 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 degs. Numbers of fireflies were
hovering about, and the musquitoes were very troublesome.
I exposed my hand for five minutes, and it was soon black
with them; I do not suppose there could have been less than
fifty, all busy sucking.
October 15th. - 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 (Rhynchops
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, differing from every
other bird, is an inch and a half longer than the upper. In
a lake near Maldonado, from which the water had been
nearly drained, and which, in consequence, swarmed with
small fry, I saw several of these birds, generally in small
flocks, flying rapidly backwards and forwards close to the
surface of the lake. They kept their bills wide open, and
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 twist about
with extreme quickness, and dexterously manage with their
projecting lower mandible to plough up small fish, which are
secured by the upper and shorter half of their scissor-like
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