IN THE WILDS OF SOUTH AMERICA
The cock-of-the-rock at home.
IN THE WILDS
OF SOUTH AMERICA
SIX YEARS OF EXPLORATION IN
COLOMBIA, VENEZUELA, BRITISH GUIANA, PERU, BOLIVIA,
ARGENTINA, PARAGUAY, AND BRAZIL
BY
LEO E. MILLER
OF THE AMERICAN MUSEUM OF NATURAL HISTORY
WITH OVER 70 ILLUSTRATIONS AND A MAP
NEW YORK
CHARLES SCRIBNER’S SONS
1919
Copyright, 1917, 1918, by
CHARLES SCRIBNER’S SONS
Published October, 1918
TO
MY WIFE
L. E. M.
vii
PREFACE
I have frequently wondered how many of the largenumber of people who visit natural-history museums haveany conception of the appearance and actions, in theirwilderness homes, of the creatures they see, and of theexperiences of the field-naturalists who visit the little-knownplaces of the earth in search of them.
My experience as a field-naturalist consists of nearly sixyears of almost continuous exploration in South America,and embraces practically all of the republics of that continent.
The purpose of this narrative is to follow the course ofthese explorations into the tropical jungles of the Amazon,Paraguay, Orinoco, and others of South America’s masterrivers, and to the frigid heights of the snow-crowned Andes.
In these jungles one hears the hoarse cough of the jaguarand the scream of long-tailed, multicolored macaws as theyfly two by two overhead; the extraordinary chorus of frogsand insects may lull the weary senses to sleep at nightfall,but the dismal roar of howling monkeys is sure toawaken one at dawn. To start at the sudden, long-drawnhiss of a boa or the lightning-like thrust of the terrible bushmaster,the largest of poisonous snakes, and a creature sodeadly that a man may die within ten minutes after thefatal stroke, and to shudder as the wild, insane cackle of thewood-rails shatters the brooding silence of the forest, aremerely incidents of the explorer’s every-day life; and so,too, are visits to deep lagoons teeming with crocodiles, cannibalfishes, and myriads of water-fowl; lengthy sojourns ingloomy forests where orchids droop from moss-drapedbranches, brilliant butterflies shimmer in the subdued light,and curious animals live in the eternal shadows; and ascentsviiiof the stupendous mountain ranges where condors soarmajestically above the ruins of Incan greatness. In