The bushmaster, called _surucucú_ in Brazil, is truly a terrible creature. It grows to a length of ten feet or more, and attains a great thickness. A snake of that size has fangs an inch and a half long and injects nearly a tablespoonful of poison at a single thrust. The ground-color is reddish yellow crossed by black bands, sometimes forming a series of X’s along the back. It does not take kindly to captivity and dies of starvation after a few months of confinement. It is one of the few snakes which are supposed to incubate their eggs. After selecting a hole in the ground or in a stump the reptile lays a dozen or more eggs; then it coils up on top of them and does not leave the vicinity until they hatch; at such times it is very irritable, and will strike with deadly results any creature which disturbs it. The poison acts rapidly, and I heard of a case where an Indian died in less than half an hour after having been bitten. There were also small brown salamanders and lizards with spiny backs that resembled horned toads. Perhaps the rarest catch of all was a splendid example of the curious cane-rat (_Dactylomys_), an animal seldom encountered on account of its rarity and secretive habits. It resembles a large rat, being twenty-five inches long, and of a dark-gray color; the toes are divided into pairs in order to enable it to easily climb slender stalks, and instead of claws it has nails. The pupils of the eyes are elliptical, like a cat’s; when annoyed it uttered a hoarse scream, a sound occasionally heard at night, but which we did not heretofore recognize. After the brush had been removed for the distance of a hundred yards or more from the edge of the clearing, the Indians began to cut down the trees; some of these were of enormous size, especially the ceibas; one that I measured was twenty-five feet through the base, counting the supporting, bracket-like roots, and fifteen men hacked at it at the same time. When the tree fell they set up a wild cheering and took great delight in watching this monarch of the forest tumble to the ground.