ulo, Kermit had accidentally
dug up armadillos with a steam-shovel.

There were big ant-hills, some of them of huge dimensions, scattered
through the country. Sometimes they were built against the stems of
trees. We did not here come across any of the poisonous or biting ants
which, when sufficiently numerous, render certain districts
uninhabitable. They are ordinarily not very numerous. Those of them
that march in large bodies kill nestling birds, and at once destroy
any big animal unable to get out of their way. It has been suggested
that nestlings in their nests are in some way immune from the attack
of these ants. The experiments of our naturalists tended to show that
this was not the case. They plundered any nest they came across and
could get at.

Once we saw a small herd of peccaries, one a sow followed by three
little pigs--they are said to have only two young, but we saw three,
although of course it is possible one belonged to another sow. The
herd galloped into a mass of thorny cover the hounds could not
penetrate; and when they were in safety we heard them utter, from the
depths of the jungle, a curious moaning sound.

On one ride we passed a clump of palms which were fairly ablaze with
bird color. There were magnificent hyacinth macaws; green parrots with
red splashes; toucans with varied plumage, black, white, red, yellow;
green jacmars; flaming orioles and both blue and dark-red tanagers. It
was an extraordinary collection. All were noisy. Perhaps there was a
snake that had drawn them by its presence; but we could find no snake.
The assembly dispersed as we rode up; the huge blue macaws departed in
pairs, uttering their hoarse "ar-rah-h, ar-rah-h." It has been said
that parrots in the wilderness are only noisy on the wing. They are
certainly noisy on the wing; and those that we saw were quiet while
they were feeding; but ordinarily when they were perched among the
branches, and especially when, as in the case of the little parakeets
near the house, they were gathering materials for nest-building, they
were just as noisy as while flying.

The water-birds were always a delight. We shot merely the two or three
specimens the naturalists needed for the museum. I killed a wood-ibis
on the wing with the handy little Springfield, and then lost all the
credit I had thus gained by a series of inexcusable misses, at long
range, before I finally killed a jabiru. Kermit shot a jabiru with the
Luger automatic. The