He! he! showing how keenly they enjoyed the joke.
They next went forward with as much delight, and scampered over the
men. Every night they went fore and aft, rousing with impartial feet
every sleeper, and laughing to scorn the aimless blows, growls, and
deadly rushes of outraged humanity. We observed elsewhere a species
of large mouse, nearly allied to Euryotis unisulcatus (F. Cuvier),
escaping up a rough and not very upright wall, with six young ones
firmly attached to the perineum. They were old enough to be well
covered with hair, and some were not detached by a blow which
disabled the dam. We could not decide whether any involuntary
muscles were brought into play in helping the young to adhere. Their
weight seemed to require a sort of cataleptic state of the muscles of
the jaw, to enable them to hold on.
Scorpions, centipedes, and poisonous spiders also were not
unfrequently brought into the ship with the wood, and occasionally
found their way into our beds; but in every instance we were
fortunate enough to discover and destroy them before they did any
harm. Naval officers on this coast report that, when scorpions and
centipedes remain a few weeks after being taken on board in a similar
manner, their poison loses nearly all its virulence; but this we did
not verify. Snakes sometimes came in with the wood, but oftener
floated down the river to us, climbing on board with ease by the
chain-cable, and some poisonous ones were caught in the cabin.
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