dark woods, not coming out into the
sunshine. Its crop was filled with ants; when shot it was feeding at a
cluster of long red flowers. He also got a very handsome trogon and an
exquisite little tanager, as brilliant as a cluster of jewels; its
throat was lilac, its breast turquoise, its crown and forehead topaz,
while above it was glossy purple-black, the lower part of the back
ruby-red. This tanager was a female; I can hardly imagine that the
male is more brilliantly colored. The fourth bird was a queer hawk of
the genus ibycter, black, with a white belly, naked red cheeks and
throat and red legs and feet. Its crop was filled with the seeds of
fruits and a few insect remains; an extraordinary diet for a hawk.

The morning of the 16th was dark and gloomy. Through sheets of
blinding rain we left our camp of misfortune for another camp where
misfortune also awaited us. Less than half an hour took our dugouts to
the head of the rapids below. As Kermit had already explored the left-
hand side, Colonel Rondon and Lyra went down the right-hand side and
found a channel which led round the worst part, so that they deemed it
possible to let down the canoes by ropes from the bank. The distance
to the foot of the rapids was about a kilometre. While the loads were
being brought down the left bank, Luiz and Antonio Correa, our two
best watermen, started to take a canoe down the right side, and
Colonel Rondon walked ahead to see anything he could about the river.
He was accompanied by one of our three dogs, Lobo. After walking about
a kilometre he heard ahead a kind of howling noise, which he thought
was made by spider-monkeys. He walked in the direction of the sound
and Lobo ran ahead. In a minute he heard Lobo yell with pain, and
then, still yelping, come toward him, while the creature that was
howling also approached, evidently in pursuit. In a moment a second
yell from Lobo, followed by silence, announced that he was dead; and
the sound of the howling when near convinced Rondon that the dog had
been killed by an Indian, doubtless with two arrows. Probably the
Indian was howling to lure the spider-monkeys toward him. Rondon fired
his rifle in the air, to warn off the Indian or Indians, who in all
probability had never seen a civilized man, and certainly could not
imagine that one was in the neighborhood. He then returned to the foot
of the rapids, where the portage was still going on, and, in company
with Lyra, Kermit, and Antoni