Our encampment was established at the entrance of a fresh glade. L'Encuerado had killed five or six small birds; we were, therefore, certain of something for dinner. We had scarcely finished our building operations, when Lucien, who had been prowling about, lifting up stones and looking under stubs in order to find insects, loudly called out to me. When I got up to him, I saw at the bottom of a hole a coral-serpent, measuring about a yard in length. The reptile was coiled up, and remained motionless while we admired its beautiful red skin, divided at intervals with rings of shining black. L'Encuerado promptly cut a forked stick and pinned the animal down to the ground. The prisoner immediately tried to stand up on end; its jaws distended, and its head assumed a menacing aspect. Gringalet barked at it furiously, without, however, daring to go near. The Indian unsheathed his cutlass--the prospect of an unlooked-for addition to dinner quite delighted him. The flesh of the serpent is a well-known Indian dish. Previous to the conquest of Mexico by the Spaniards, the rattlesnake itself found its place at their highest festivals. Dioscorides[M] prescribed the flesh of the viper as a tonic, and it formed one of the component parts of _theriaca_, the great panacea of our ancestors, which was one of the principal branches of Venetian commerce. In spite of all these precedents, the dish proposed by l'Encuerado was unanimously rejected. Having cut off the serpent's head, we all went off to reconnoitre. Going in pursuit of a troop of squirrels, we were led to the edge of the glade without having been able to reach them. A little way in the forest, Sumichrast espied a small russet-colored owl, which suddenly disappeared in a hollow at the foot of an old tree. We all kept quiet for ten minutes, in order to observe the bird's way of hunting. At last it suddenly reappeared, and, standing motionless and upright upon its legs at the entrance of its place of refuge, it looked very like a sentinel on duty in his watch-box. Suddenly it started, and slightly bending its body, winked its great yellow eyes several times; then, skimming over the ground with the swiftness of an arrow, it darted into the high grass. It soon made its appearance again, with its feathers erect and flapping its wings. It held in its mouth a poor little mouse, which it carried off into its subterraneous retreat. It was the species of owl called _Athene hypogaea_, which is often met with in the savannahs, and hunts in the day-time as well as in the night. "What a comical-looking bird!" said Lucien; "and yet I'm half afraid of its brilliant eyes and hooked nose." "Every one is frightened at him, Chanito," replied l'Encuerado; "and when he settles near a hut at night, and raises his dismal cry, he predicts the early death of some one of those who hear him."