Page:The naturalist on the River Amazons 1863 v2.djvu/267

 I spent the morning of the 27th collecting insects in the woods of Shimuní; assisting my friend in the afternoon to beat a large pool for Tracajás, Cardozo wishing to obtain a supply for his table at home. The pool was nearly a mile long, and lay on one side of the island between the forest and the sand-bank. The sands are heaped up very curiously around the margins of these isolated sheets of water; in the present case they formed a steeply-inclined bank, from five to eight feet in height. What may be the cause of this formation I cannot imagine. The pools always contain a quantity of imprisoned fish, turtles, tracajás, and Aiyussás. The turtles and Aiyussás crawl out voluntarily in the course of a few days, and escape to the main river, but the Tracajás remain and become an easy prey to the natives. The ordinary mode of obtaining them is to whip the water in every part with rods for several hours during the day; this treatment having the effect of driving the animals out. They wait, however, until the night following the beating before making their exit. Our Indians were occupied for many hours in this work, and when night came they and the sentinels were placed at intervals along the edge of the water to be ready to capture the runaways. Cardozo and I, after supper, went and took our station at one end of the pool.

We did not succeed, after all our trouble, in getting many Tracajás. This was partly owing to the intense darkness of the night, and partly, doubtless, to the