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Rh is larger and much more ferocious, and has a longer and sharper head. Many a man who has been upset in a canoe on the Chagres, or who has walked too near what looked like a rotting log stranded on the bank, has been caught and eaten by a crocodile. Parties of Americans are often organized to hunt and kill these dangerous reptiles.

Man-eating sharks are found in the waters on either side of the Isthmus, as well as an abundance of Spanish mackerel, and other food fish. Indeed, the name "Panama" means, in the old Indian tongue, "a place abounding in fish." There is not much chance that the different breeds of the two oceans will have a chance to mingle by swimming through the canal, unless they are able to swim uphill through locks and sluices, and through a fresh-water lake. (See page 230.)

Though men and other animals are sluggish and lazy in the tropics, it is there that insects show the greatest vitality and activity. The big black ants go marching about at night in small armies, and negroes are hired to follow them till they find their nests, which they then pour full of an explosive liquid and blow up. Well-defined ant trails, an inch or so wide, run through the jungle, and even at noon they are crowded with hurrying passengers, every fourth or fifth ant carrying a bit of green leaf by way of a parasol. A corner of a cinder tennis court that was built for the officers of the battalion of marines at Camp Elliott blocked one of these ant paths, and the ants kept cutting it down to the former level, no matter how often the soldiers filled it up. Little red ants swarm in all the houses, however well they