Untitled - The Alfred Russel Wallace Website

ANIMAL MIGRATIONS 373
dinner-table. "Now," said Dona Juanita,
"is the
and she set her maids to
;
time for the water cure "
sprinkle water over the visitors, who at once took
the hint, gathered up their scattered squadrons,
reformed in column, and resumed their march.
Whenever their inquisitions became troublesome
to myself during the three days, I took the liberty
to scatter a few suggestive drops among them, and
it always sufficed to make them turn aside ; but any
attempt at a forcible ejectment they were sure to
resent with tooth and tail ; and their bite and sting
were rather formidable, for they were large and
lusty ants. For weeks afterwards the squeaking of
a mouse and the whirring of a cockroach were
sounds unheard in that house. 1
MIGRATIONS OF BIRDS AND MAMMALS
The most remarkable migration that I have my-
self witnessed in South America is that of the great
\Voocl-Ibis (7\intalus locn/ator},
called Jabirii
in
Brazil, Gauan in Venezuela, between the Amazon
and the Orinoco, a distance of from 300 to 500 miles
in a straight line, but a thousand or more following
the course of the rivers. The migrations are so
timed that the birds are always on the one river or
the other when the water is lowest and there is
most sandy beach exposed, affording the greatest
extent of fishing-ground.
In the years 1853 and
1 The
ants called Carniceras or Butchers in Maynas are probably
of a
tribe distinct from the Foragers ; for they are burrowing ants, ami are said to
prefer the flesh of human carcasses to any oilier food. Padre Velasco, in his
History of Quit.'.
us thai they \\ill make a
perfect
>keleton ol a
corpse
the it is very day buried, and that tlx-y devour any di-.abl.-d animal, hov
lan^e, they find in the fore-t.