CHAPTER VI.

A GOLD MINE IN THE WILDERNESS.

We loaded our tin canisters, clothing bags, guns and cameras on a cart which was waiting and set out along the bush trail, three and a half miles to the gold mine. The trail led through a great swampy forest with a clear brook occasionally crossing it, and for the sake of the wagon which had to transport all supplies, it was corduroyed in the worst places with small saplings or quartered trunks. We had all donned cheap tennis shoes which proved on this and all later occasions to be perfect footwear for the tropics. The rubber soles allow one to obtain sure footing in slippery places and a wetting matters nothing. If one walks far enough the shoes dry on one’s feet, or at camp a new pair may be slipped on in a moment and next day the old ones are none the worse for the soaking. Here snake-proof and water-proof shoes are as useless as they are uncomfortable.

It was amusing to see how quickly the regard for mud and water left even those of our party who were taking their first dip into the real “bush.” For the first few yards all picked their way carefully. There was even a pair of storm rubbers leaving its checkered print on the forest mould! Then some one stepped on the loose end of a corduroy sapling which rose in air and fell with a sharp spat. Everyone dodged the shower of mud and straightway went over ankles in water. The cool fluid trickled between our toes and we all laughed with relief. The rubbers found an early grave in the mud-hole and we all strode happily along, wishing we had a hundred eyes, to see all that was going on around and above us.

[Illustration: FIG. 76. CROSSING A STREAM ON THE HOORIE JUNGLE ROAD.]

A perfect medley of calls and cries came from the tree-tops high overhead as we tramped along. In places the trees were magnificent, looking like a maze of columns in some great cathedral, roofed over with a lofty dome of foliage. On this first walk the final impression was of a host of strange sights and sounds, a few of which we were able to disentangle on succeeding days. We had poured over Waterton, Schomburgk and Bates but we realized anew the utter futility of trying to reconstruct with pen and ink the grandeur and beauty, and forever and always the mystery, of a tropical forest.

Then from the heart of the wilderness we came suddenly upon man’s handiwork; the tiny, twenty acre clearing of the gold mine. On the outskirts of the forest were the frail, frond-roofed shelters which marked the homes of the Indians and the rough mud and thatch huts of the black laborers. A dam was thrown across the narrow valley and on the rim of the jungle lake thus made, was the powerful electric engine. This great thing of vibrating wheels and pistons seemed strangely out of place in the wilderness. As we watched, it seemed to take on a semblance of dull life. Stolid-faced, naked Indians fed it vast quantities of cord wood, and in return it sucked up a great pipeful of water from the lake. The pipe lay quietly on trestles, winding up and around a low hill out of sight, giving no hint of the terrific rush of water within.

Following the pipe line we turn a sudden corner on the hill-top and the heart of the clearing lies at our feet. At the end of the pipe, far below, a man stands, barely able to guide and shift the mighty spout of water which gushes forth. Half the hill has been torn away by the irresistible stream, which shoots upward in a majestic column and dashes with a roar against the cliff of clay and rubble. The ever-widening gorge which the water has eaten into the hill glows in the sunlight with bright-colored strata. On each side the red clay is dominant, while between runs the strip of pale gray which holds the precious nuggets.

[Illustration: FIG. 77. THE WILDERNESS TRAIL.]

It is an ochreous clay carrying free gold. The rock is in place and perfectly decomposed to a depth of seventy-five or one hundred feet. This decomposition is the result of the constant infiltration of warm rains carrying carbonic acid and humous acids from the rapidly decaying tropical vegetation. Through the clay are scattered nodules of impure limonite.

In a tumbling, falling mass the muddy water washes back upon its path, confined in a trough under the pipe, and as it goes it gives up its yellow burden. As the grains and nuggets drop to the bottom they touch the mercury and behold! to the eye they are no longer gold but silver!

As we had been impressed by the grandeur of the forest, so we now began to see the romance of the wonderful gold deep hidden beneath the centuries of jungle growth. Gold, which we had known only in form of coin or ring, now assumed a new beauty and meaning. Here, amid the great trees, the beautiful birds and insects, the Indians as yet unspoiled by civilization, one could thoroughly enjoy such “money-making.” One hears of gold mines all one’s life, but until one actually sees the metal taken from its resting place where it has laid since the earth was young, the word means but little.

Beyond the golden gorge with the roaring “little giant” ever filling it with spray, was a second hill topped with the bungalow which we were to call home. Beyond this the jungle began again.

After a delicious shower-bath we slung our hammocks on the veranda and sat on the hillside in the moonlight for an hour or more, watching the night shift at work, one or two men guiding the stream beneath flickering arc-lights, others puddling the down rushing torrent. Just beneath us in the dark shadow of a bush lay the coolie night watchman, with the inscrutable face of his race, keeping watch over the long, snaky flume, at the bottom of which the quicksilver was ever engulfing the precious metal.

Later we slept the dreamless hammock sleep of the tropics, lulled by the dull droning roar of the water dashing against the clay—a sound which echoed through the jungle and gained in volume until we drowsily knew we were listening to the howling of the red baboons. Even this invasion of man merged harmoniously with the sounds of the wilderness.

LIFE ABOUT THE BUNGALOW.

We remained at Hoorie just seven days—only long enough to begin to look beneath the surface and realize what a veritable wonderland it was for scientist or nature lover.

On the last day of our stay we wrote in our journal; “Hoorie is a perfect health resort; temperature good[D]; no mosquitoes; food excellent; splendid place for laboratory work; interesting insect life superabundant; birds and lizards abundant; snakes rare; perai, electric eels and manatees in the creek; peccary, deer, red howlers, armadillos, sloths and ant-eaters within short distance of bungalow.” What more could be asked?

The bungalow was a well-built house with wide veranda, perched on the cleared summit of a low hill sloping evenly in all directions; the thick bush and shrubby undergrowth beginning about one hundred feet down the hillside.

We shall not attempt to describe or even mention the many varieties of creatures which haunted the clearing, but leaving these for our scientific reports, we shall speak only of those which are especially interesting.

When one enters a vast forested wilderness such as this, and makes a good-sized clearing, the inmates of the forest are bound to be affected. The most timid ones flee at the first stroke of the axe; others, swayed by curiosity, return again and again to watch the interlopers. A third class, learning somehow of the new settlement, come post haste and make themselves at home. These are chiefly birds, which, seldom or never found living in the heart of the jungle, are as keen as Vultures to spy out a new clearing. They must follow the canoes and trail, else it is impossible to imagine how they learn of new outposts—whether a simple Indian hammock shelter and cassava field, or a great commercial undertaking such as this gold mine.

To begin with the birds, the Hoorie clearing possessed two pairs of Blue,[143] three pairs of Palm,[144] and five pairs of Silverbeak[146] Tanagers, besides six Blue-backed Seedeaters.[131] None of these are forest birds and all nest in brushy places.

The Blue Tanagers are clad in delicate, varying shades of pale blue; the Palm Tanagers in dull olive green, but both make up in noisy sibilant cries what they lack in color. The Silverbeaks are beautiful, shading from rich wine color to black, and with conspicuous silvery blue beaks. The little Seedeaters were the most familiar birds about the bungalow, coming to the steps to feed on fallen seeds.

One of the first things which caught our eye were several brilliantly iridescent green birds, insect-catching, among the brush near the house. These were Paradise Jacamars,[85] and they had their homes in the clay banks of the rivulets, deep buried in the narrow valleys which abounded in the forest.

Each bird had two or more favorite twigs. When bug-hunting flagged at one post they flew with a long swoop to the second point of vantage. Our assistant, Crandall, observing this, laid a limed twig across the lookout perch and in a short time had caught two male birds. Their mates called loudly for a time, then disappeared. Before night both had returned with new mates, which we left in peace.

[Illustration: FIG. 78. ENGINE HOUSE AND FLUME OF HOORIE GOLD MINE.]

They were tame and allowed us to approach within eight or ten feet before flying to their alternate perches. Their feet are small and weak and they have a hunched up look as they perch in wait, turning the head rapidly in every direction and now and then swooping like a flash after some tiny insect, engulfing it with a loud snap of the mandibles. Their call-note is a sharp, repeated _pip! pip! pip! pip!_

These birds welcome the clearing, as it means an increased supply of insect food. They learn the value even of the opening made by the fall of a single tree deep in the jungle, and here and elsewhere we noticed that a single pair of Jacamars would keep busy day after day in the patch of sunlight let in by the death of some forest giant. Jacamars form a rather compact group of some twenty species; in habit like Flycatchers; in appearance and nest like Kingfishers, but in structure more closely related to Toucans and Woodpeckers.

Even in the short time which we spent at Hoorie we learned to expect a regular daily movement on the part of many of the birds. Early each morning a flock of about a dozen splendid Jays worked slowly around the edge of the clearing, at last disappearing behind the bungalow into the woods. In the north this would not be an unusual sight, but it must be remembered that members of the Jay family, like the Wood Warblers, are rarely seen in the tropics. Crows and Ravens are entirely absent from South America, and but two species of Jays find their way into British Guiana.

Our Hoorie birds were Lavender Jays[161] and although so far from the home of their family they were no whit the less Jay-like. They constantly hailed each other with a varied vocabulary of harsh cries and calls, and now and then held a morsel of food between the toes and pounded it vigorously. They flapped but seldom, passing with short sailing flights from branch to branch not far from the ground.

At night they returned rather more rapidly—less absorbed in feeding—probably to some roosting place of which they alone knew. With them, night and morning, were a few Red-backed Bunyahs or Cassiques,[152] early nesters from the colony at the dam, of which more anon. The two species seemed to associate closely, although it was evident that it was the Bunyahs which had taken up with the sturdy pioneers from the North.

A short distance away from the bungalow a huge Mora stood in the forest looking down on all the trees around. The lightning bolt which had torn off its bark and killed it, had also consumed its dense clothing of parasitic vines and bush-ropes. So now it stood with naked, clean wood high above the sea of foliage, and within a day after our arrival we had christened it the Toucan Mora.

In the evening, about on the stroke of seven, the first comers would arrive—a trio of Black-banded Aracaris[84] which alight and preen their feathers. These may remain quiet for about twenty minutes, but more often take to flight at the approach of a screaming flock of eight or ten Mealy Amazon Parrots[63] which scatter over the branches. But the other species of Toucans are now awake and soon the Parrots are in turn driven off, and four or five big-billed fellows usurp the dead Mora and sun themselves or call loudly to the Vultures swinging high overhead. There are two species of these larger Toucans, the Red-billed[81] and the Sulphur and White-breasted,[82] and they seem to live together amicably, but war with the small Aracaris. The notes of the Red-billed Toucans are like the yapping of a puppy, uttered in pairs and differing slightly, thus, _yap! yip! yap! yip!_ The great mandibles are opened and thrown upward at each utterance. The brilliant white-breasted birds call loudly _kiok! kiok!_ in a high, shrill tone very unlike that of their fellows.

Morning and evening the Toucans and Parrots pass, always alighting on the dead Mora, while during the day we detect them deep in the jungle, feeding in the tops of the trees and sending down to us their calls, _yap!_, _kiok!_ or _squawk!_ as the case may be.

[Illustration: FIG. 79. THE “LITTLE GIANT” AT WORK.]

A fourth species, the Red-breasted Toucan[83] was occasionally seen high in the tree tops. These birds had two distinct utterances, one a frog-like croak, and the other a double-toned shrill cry, the two tones being B and B# above middle C.

Early in the evenings, about six o’clock, all the Banded Swallows[118] of the surrounding region passed overhead in a dense flock, two or three hundred in all, soaring with a steady, half-sailing flight very different from the dashing swoops which carry them over the lake when feeding during the day. Now they are headed northward to some safe roosting place and with no thought of passing gnats. The myriads of graceful, glossy blue forms, each crossed on the breast with a band of white, made a most beautiful sight. In the morning their return flight was by twos and threes, with rapid darts here and there. Hunger now permitted no dressing of ranks or close formation. During the day none were to be seen about the bungalow, but only on the lake or along the creek bed. The unfortunate gnats which hummed in the bungalow clearing were attended to by the little Feather-toed Palm Swifts,[71] which were most abundant.

Among the hosts of smaller birds which haunted the tree-tops at the edge of the clearing, the Black-faced Green Grosbeaks[135] were especially noticeable. In color they reminded one of immature male Orchard Orioles, being yellowish green with black throat and face. They fed morning and evening on the reddish berries of a great vine which ripened its fruit in the tree-tops, and here their song was repeated over and over, a rattling buzz, like the rapid stroke of a stick along the palings of a fence, followed by three liquid, whip-like notes, thus:

[Music]

The buzz part of the song also did duty as the call-note.

Once or twice each day we would be treated to a glimpse of the wonderful Pompadour Cotingas.[116] A flock of four male birds would flash overhead and swing up to some lofty perch, wary, silent, but of exquisite color. The whole body was of a brilliant reddish purple—rich wine color—with wings of purest white. Silhouetted against the blue sky as they were perched close together, they might have been Starlings or Blackbirds as far as color went, but when they all shot off into the air and showed up against the green leaves they fairly blazed—the yellow eyes, the scintillating purple plumage, and the dazzling white wings. The last flash of the wings before they were folded out of sight was a most efficient protection as it seemed to hold the vision, so that several moments elapsed before the perching bird itself could be located.

The sombre, ashy females were not observed; certainly they never joined in the flights with the quartet of males. In the latter sex, a half dozen or more of the greater wing coverts are stiffened and the webs curved around almost into little tubes. We know practically nothing of the wild habits of the Pompadour Cotinga but a most remarkable thing about the color is that, by the application of a little heat, it turns from deep reddish purple to pale yellow. It is rather interesting to compare this with the changing of the Purple Finch from rose-red to yellowish in captivity. The Chatterers or Cotingas form one of the most interesting tropical families of birds, and we lost no opportunity of studying closely all which we observed. At Hoorie, beside the Pompadour Cotingas we saw the Black-tailed Tityra.[113] In Mexico we had seen a closely related species and here again were the strange “Frog-birds,” with a little more black on the cap and tail.

We first observed a pair near the colony of Red-backed Bunyahs in the creek bed, but as we were leaving the bungalow for the last time, our farewell was made all the harder by discovering that the Tityras had begun to nest in a small dead stub standing alone in the centre of the vegetable garden and not twenty yards from the bungalow.

The birds were having a hard time of it, carrying stiff, four-inch twigs into a three-inch hole, but they were succeeding, showing that they knew better than to hold the twig by the centre. The whole head to below the eyes and including the upper nape was black, while the bare skin of the face and the basal two-thirds of the beak were bright red. The male was uniformly pale bluish white, while his mate was distinguished by many rather faint streaks of black on the breast, sides, and under parts. Both birds alternated in carrying the nesting material and in arranging it, remaining silent as long as we watched them. The nesting stub was about six inches in diameter and the hole thirty feet above the ground.

[Illustration: FIG. 80. CARIB HUNTER AND HIS CHILDREN AT HOORIE.]

These birds lack the bright hues of most of their relatives, but have the family trait of possessing some queer trick of plumage. While the first flight feather of the wing is perfectly normal, measuring about three and a half inches in length, the second is a mere parody of a feather, tapering to a point and reaching a length of less than two inches. Only the true lover of birds will realize what an effort it took to tear ourselves away from this pair of birds, whose eggs and young appear to be as yet undescribed.

Two Marail Guans[6] and a Trumpeter[25] were interesting inmates of the hen-yard and made no effort to escape, although they were full-winged and had the run of the clearing. The Trumpeter went to roost each night at 5.30 as punctually as if he had a watch under his wing. He slept standing on one leg, resting on the first joints of his front toes, his head drawn back behind his wing.

Often on our walks we would come across an Indian hut, so hidden away in the depths of the dense forest that its discovery was merely a matter of chance. Most of these huts consisted simply of four poles covered by the rudest sort of a palm-thatched roof. The house furnishing was as primitive as the house itself—a hammock for each member of the family; varying in size in proportion to that of their owners, like the chairs of the historic nursery characters—the “Three Bears.” One or two calabashes or gourds, several hand-woven baskets of cassava bread, some strips of dried fish and a smoky fire completed the picture.

[Illustration: FIG. 81. THREE GENERATIONS OF CARIB INDIANS.]

The entire domestic life of these Indian establishments went on perfectly openly and quite unaffected by our curious scrutiny. We rarely saw the Indian men at home; they were off hunting, or fishing, or perhaps employed by the mine as woodcutters. The women were always busy, cooking, planting cassava, spinning cotton, weaving hammocks and baskets and bead aprons, necklaces and bracelets. We could never resist the temptation to stop and make friends with them. The gift of a cigarette won their hearts and we invariably found them very gentle and kindly. Their costumes were extraordinary. Those who had been presented with the garments of civilization proudly wore them, though they were nothing more than short, loose slips. But the majority wore their native dress—consisting chiefly of beads; certainly far more healthful and suitable for them than the unaccustomed clothing given them by the missionaries. The children were lovable little pieces of bronze, very smooth and glossy. They would often come softly up and slip their small hands in ours, looking up at us with shy wonder.

In one of the huts we watched with amusement the wee-est of Indian girls trying to drive away a huge rooster who was pervading the hut. The child could not have been more than two years old—but she was already thoroughly feminine, waving her small arms valiantly at the intruder and then running away terrified to bury her head in her mother’s hammock, until she could summon courage for another attack upon the enemy.

As time went on and news of our arrival spread, Indians from huts far distant in the forest made expeditions to come and look at us; as curious about us as was the small boy living up on the Essequibo River who saved up his “bits” and took a long journey down the river to see a horse. He had heard that there were such creatures but he wished to investigate for himself. So tours were made to see us and we were inspected by wondering eyes to whom white women were as strange as were horses to the little “bush” lad.

[Illustration: FIG. 82. MR. WILSHIRE AND CRANDALL WITH DEAD BUSHMASTER.]

[Illustration: FIG. 83. THE TERRIBLE BUSHMASTER.]

One day at the bungalow we found a group of Indian children gathered about the door of the modern bathroom which Mr. Wilshire had had fitted up. It was all a great puzzle to the little dwellers in the forest. To amuse them we took them in and turned on and off the shower bath, trying to explain what it was, but all to no purpose. To them a bath meant “me wash skin in river”; while the shower-bath was merely an interesting scientific phenomenon—the mysterious white beings were making rain at their own will!

We were disappointed at not getting more photographs of the Indians. Their prejudice against being photographed is a deep-rooted superstition. They feel that it gives you a superhuman power over them. Indians often ran like deer through the woods when we pointed the camera at them and it was only by passing around candy to those who came to the bungalow and so diverting their attention from the dreaded camera, that we secured any pictures at all.

We encountered but one poisonous serpent, and that one by proxy. A big bushmaster or couanacouchi, all but dead, was brought to the house one day by an Indian who had speared it. It had been found coiled up on the forest leaves and was so like them in color that the Indian had nearly trod upon it. Although we searched thoroughly we could never find a second specimen.

A DAY IN THE JUNGLE NEAR HOORIE.

The region about Hoorie consists chiefly of small but steep hills, some isolated with a few hundred yards of flat land about them, others close together and separated by deep, narrow valleys with running water at the bottom. All drain into Hoorie Creek which from the mine clearing runs in a fairly straight direction through flat, marshy land to the Barama River up which we had come. The whole country is, of course, completely covered with a thick forest, of good-sized trees, which are heavily draped with vines and parasitic plants, although these are not dense enough to shut out the sunlight. Thus in many places a heavy undergrowth is found, making it difficult to get about, while the steep ascents and equally precipitous descents into the numerous intersecting valleys make extended exploration an arduous task, especially in the directions away from Hoorie Creek. But in this land of superabundant life, one needs but a short walk to fill one’s note-book with interesting facts. Let us spend a day in the jungle.

In light marching order, with glasses and note-books only, we started out in the direction of the great pit of golden gravel, and finding Nasua, the coolie, we persuaded him to pan a few shovelfuls of earth from the surface of the ground within reach of the spray of the water spouting up towards us.

It was fascinating to watch his slender deft fingers and his skilful manipulation of the gold pan. Filling it to overflowing with gray or red clay, he half sank it beneath the surface of a little pool and began rocking and turning it. Soon the large pebbles were all eliminated and only a muddy sediment left. This was washed and revolved until there seemed nothing but clear water, when as the last dirt was flowed over the rim there came the flash of the golden grains. Pressing his fingers on these, the pan was reversed for a moment, and then dipping his finger tips in the clear water of our glass vial the yellow grains sank swiftly to the bottom. Sometimes only a half penny’s worth would reward us, while again as much as a shilling’s value would be shown.

Passing over the ridge we saw before us a deep and very narrow valley with precipitous sides, down which we slid and crawled, hanging on to vines and saplings to break our descent. At the bottom we found an interesting advance in the evolution of gold mining over the simplest form of gold panning. Two blacks were operating a “Long Tom,” which in mining vernacular is the name for a six by two, heavy, coarse, metal sieve set obliquely in the channel of a small brook. The gold-bearing gravel and clay is shovelled into it and puddled with a hoe, and the gold settles to the bottom to be later panned. Thus division of labor enters in—one black shovelling while his partner puddles. We asked them how much they were getting out and, as usual, they said “almost nothing,” or a few shillings’ worth at the most! This was to avoid any danger of their tiny holdings being considered too valuable and taken away from them. Mr. Wilshire took a pan here on another day and unearthed a tiny nugget, worth perhaps two shillings, much to the blacks’ discomfiture, who hastened to explain that such an opulent find was indeed rare. The poor fellows at best make little enough and it was pitiful to see the tiny packets of gold dust which they brought to the company’s store at the end of the week to exchange for food or credit checks. The universal Guianan name for this type of independent miner is “pork-knocker,” the explanation being that by knocking the rocks to pieces, they find just enough gold to procure the pork upon which they live.

[Illustration: FIG. 84. PANNING GOLD.]

They are allowed to work on side streams near the large mining operations, their total taking of gold being relatively insignificant, while they sometimes locate valuable deposits in the course of their wanderings. They are a jolly, happy-go-lucky type, apparently careless of their luck and invariably optimistic of the future.

A naturalist would find it difficult to keep his attention fixed on “Pan” or “Long Tom” in this narrow glade, for great iridescent blue morpho butterflies are floating about everywhere among the lights and shadows. From some tall trees a continual shower of whirling objects are falling, some white, others purple. Catching one we find it to be a narrow petaled, five parted, star-like blossom (_Petræa arborea_), weighted by a slender stem. When thrown up into the air they revolve like horizontal pin-wheels, falling slowly and forming a most remarkable rain of color. Forcing our way up the opposite slope and on through the underbrush we come out on the corduroy road half a mile from the mine.

As a corduroy sapling turns and splashes the water under foot, a cloud of orange and white butterflies arises and scatters through the woods. Suddenly through the warm damp stillness there rings out a piercing, three-syllabled cry, which was to become for us the vocal spirit of the Guiana wilderness. Day after day we heard it wherever the unbroken primeval forest reigned, but never near the haunts of man. This, with the roar of the red baboon and the celestial theme of the Quadrille Bird, forms the trilogy most cherished in our memory of all the Guiana sounds.

We are listening to the call of the Gold or Greenheart Bird,[115] another member of the Cotingas or Chatterers, which is as remarkable for its voice as it is lacking in brilliant colors. Loud as the call is, it is very ventriloquil and difficult to locate. When directly beneath the sound it seems to come from the tops of the highest trees, a hundred feet up, whereas in all probability the bird is not more than twenty-five feet above our heads. It sits motionless but the violence of its utterance makes the whole branch vibrate. We soon learn that to search and find the bird directly is impossible, but by letting the eyes take in as large a field as possible, the vibration from the vocal effort is easily discernible.

The male Goldbird is uniformly ashy or slate-colored, slightly darker above, very Solitaire-like both in color and size. The female is distinguished by a shade of rufous on the wing-coverts and the tips of the flight feathers. With such coloring it is not strange that the bird becomes invisible amid the dark shadows of the lower branches.

The natives know this bird as the _Pe-pe-yo_ from its call, and Goldbird from the fact that all pork-knockers believe it is never found far from deposits of gold; while the theory that it usually utters its call from a greenheart tree accounts for its third name.

Its note is typical of our American tropics, where highly developed song is rare, but single loud, metallic or liquid syllables are the rule. The bird has two introductory phrases which heretofore seem to have escaped the notice of observers. Indeed, until one noticed the invariable sequence of the two sets of notes, it would never be suspected that they proceeded from the same bird. The introductory phrases are low and muffled and yet have considerable carrying power. They possess the indescribable vibrating chord-like quality of the Veery’s song which defies all description. Musically they may be written thus:

[Music]

Almost instantly follow the three notes of the call or song. They are of tremendous strength and exceedingly liquid and piercing. The nearest imitation is to whistle the syllables _wheé! wheé! o!_ as loudly as possible. We never tire of listening. The bird overhead calls so loudly that our ears tingle; another answers, then a third and a fourth, far away in the dim recesses of the forest.

Many miles inland near the wonderful plateau of Roraima lives another species of Goldbird, similar to ours except for a bright rosy pink collar around the neck. We saw nothing of this beautiful Cotinga, but one of the Goldbirds which we secured had a distinct but irregular collar of rufous, hinting of a not distant relationship.

A short distance along the corduroy road we came upon a half dozen naked Indians cutting away underbush, preparatory to making a new road bed. It was a delight to watch their sinewy bodies bend and strain, moving here and there through the thorns and sharp twigs with never a scratch. They came across many curious creatures among the rotting trunks and leaf mould, and when they learned we were interested, they would tie their captives with liana threads, or imprison them in clever leaf boxes, and save them for us. The most weird looking of these were gigantic whip scorpions or pedipalp spiders (_Admetus pumilio_) like brobdignagian daddy-long-legs, which crawled painfully about on their slender legs and never showed an inclination to bite. They were of great size, stretching some eight and a half inches across. The three hinder pairs of legs were normal and used for walking, while the fourth pair was attenuated and functioned as feelers—the “whips”—measuring full ten inches in length. The jaws were most terrible organs, three inches long, dove-tailed with wicked spines, while the tips ended in villainous fangs.

[Illustration: FIG. 85. WHIP SCORPION OR PEDIPALP SPIDER.]

A few hundred yards farther we came to a small clearing where the squaws were cooking dinner. The houses of these happy people are of the simplest construction. Four poles support a roof covered with loose palm thatch, open on all sides. The hammocks are hung beneath this and an open fire is built in the centre. The Guiana Indians are unequalled exponents of the simple life.

In the deep jungle we are constantly impressed with the straightness of all the trunks. The lianas and bush-ropes may be scalloped or spiral, or with a multitude of little steps like the Monkey Ladder, and still easily reach the life-giving light high overhead. But the trees can afford no bends or curves or gnarly trunks; they rise like temple columns. Cell must be on cell, each to aid in the life race upward. There are seldom high winds here in this great calm hot-house. Everywhere between the great trunks—whitish in the Crabwood, smoothed and noded in the Congo Pump, and deeply fluted in the Paddlewoods—between all these mast-like forms, are draped the slender ratline threads and cables of the aërial rigging.

We seat ourselves on a prostrate trunk free of scorpions, at one side of the corduroy road, and watch and listen. Beside us on a tiny, dull red Mora sprout, eating voraciously is a caterpillar, branched and rebranched with a maze of nettle-hairs, while near it is another—a fuzzy fellow—who gives us one of the most unexpected surprises of the whole trip. As we first see him he is palest lavender in color, covered with long straight hairs, longer than those of our familiar black and brown woolly bear caterpillar of the north. Five minutes later we look again and see a third caterpillar—or no, it is the second one, but remarkably changed—a creature flat and immovable, covered with a score of recurved pink tufts of curled hair. The caterpillar chameleon has flattened his longer pelage of lavender into a thin line of prostrate down, bringing into view the recurved pink tufts, and thus has become an entirely different object, both as to shape, color and pattern. There must be a special set of muscles controlling these hairs. Even if a bird had appetite to digest such an unsavory hirsute object, it would well be dismayed at the transformation.

Everywhere we observe examples of protective form or coloration. On the under side of a branch in front of us are what appear to be many tufts of blackish moss—until we brush against some of it and a few of the tufts resolve into dense bunches of caterpillars. Others which we touch on purpose to see if they be caterpillars or not, deceive us doubly by retaining their vegetable character.

On the ground at our feet are scattered seed sheaths which have fallen from the branches high overhead. There are myriads of them. Suddenly one takes legs to itself and moves and only after examining it closely do we know it for a beautiful brown elater, a beetle (_Semiotus ligneus_) embossed with pale ivory—a perfect living counterpart of the arboreal seed sheaths strewn all about. Words completely fail to give an idea of the wonder and delight of having one’s senses set at naught by these devices of nature. After being taken in by several, we imagine we see them everywhere in innocent leaves or bit of lichens!

Many travellers—Wallace and Bates among them—speak often of the scarcity of flowers in the tropics, but here at Hoorie and on our later expeditions we were hardly ever out of sight of blossoms. A few feet behind us, as we sit on the log, are two Solomon-seal-like plants (_Castus_ sp.) eighteen inches high, with the stem and leaves growing in a wide ascending spiral—making one revolution throughout its course. A sheaf of flower heads appears at the top of the plant with a single white open flower, giving forth the sweetest perfume. Bell-shaped, it is formed by a single sweeping petal, the edges apposed along the summit, and the mouth rimmed with the finest hair-like fringe. The slit in the upper part is protected by a second narrow petal recurved at the tip, showing the heart within. Such a blossom would be a splendid addition to our conservatories, and a vast harvest awaits the grower of tropical plants other than orchids.

Now, the morning half gone, rain falls—a gentle mist, light as dew, refreshing and pleasant.

[Illustration: FIG. 86. A JUNGLE BLOSSOM.]

Through the drops to the blossom comes a great morpho butterfly of blue tinsel, soon followed by a big yellow papilio. A tiny white butterfly, bordered with black, dashes up and attacks the papilio with fury, driving it away, as a Kingbird vanquishes a Hawk.

Just as we are about to arise, a Goldbird calls in the distance and then without warning a beautiful song rings out close at hand—six or eight clear descending notes like the early morning chant of the Woodhewer, but even more liquid, running together at the last into a maze of warbling which continues for eight or ten seconds—then ceases, and the liquid notes form an exquisite finalé of a trio of sweet phrases. The singer is invisible; we never learn what it is, but it deserves a place near the head of the songsters even of temperate climes. As we walk along, Toucans and other birds fly high overhead with whirring beats of their drenched wings. Woodhewers loop from trunk to trunk and peer at us as we pass, while Ant-birds fly here and there. In all our tramps through thick jungles, these two latter families are in the majority, the former hitching up the trunks like brown Woodpeckers of various sizes, the latter simulating Wrens, Warblers and Sparrows in action and often in voice.

One, a White-shouldered Pygmy Ant-bird,[91] now flits ahead of us, tiny as a Wren, slate-colored, with white dots on the lesser coverts of the wings and a dotted bar across the wings. The flanks and under wings are white and although ordinarily concealed, yet the little fellow flirts his wings every second, thus flashing out the color, and making himself most conspicuous. His call-note is low and inarticulate, but he occasionally lisps a pleasing little song; _chu! chu! chúwee!_

We enter a deep narrow gully, our feet sinking deep in moss and mould, trip over a hidden root and, looking back, see a magnificent rhinoceros beetle which we have disturbed, feebly kicking his six legs in the air. In these deep valleys the air is saturated with reeking odors—woody, spicy and mouldy and altogether delightful. Moss grows on the stems of the plants like wide radiating fans of delicate green lace. In these places we find the commonest palms which grow near Hoorie—stemless, with fronds springing fern-like from the ground.

Leaving the vicinity of the trail we start out through the heart of the jungle, keeping by compass in a general northwest direction. Here the trees increase in size and grow almost thirty feet apart, the intervening space being filled with lesser growth, parasitic lianas and huge ferns eight to twelve feet in height, tree-ferns in size but not in mode of growth.

The rain now increases and we plod happily along drenched to the skin, giving ourselves up to the delight of a walk in a tropical downpour. Serenely oblivious of pools and dripping branches, we trudge along until finally a tacuba over a creek breaks with our weight and we splash in up to our waists. Indeed we had long ago become accustomed to such drenchings, for during our stay at Hoorie the days were alternate sunshine and shower. In starting out for a long tramp we never thought of taking any protection against the rain. The only thing to be shielded was the precious camera. What matters a wetting when one is perfectly dressed for whatever may happen!

A word must be said here from the woman’s point of view about the costume which was adopted as being absolutely suited to the bush life. In the first place it was light—so light that one never felt the burden of a single superfluous ounce of weight, and when thus freed from the drag of heavy clothing one would come in unfatigued from tramps which would have been impossible for a woman in orthodox dress, no matter how short the skirt. But in the light khaki knickerbockers, loose negligee shirts of scotch flannel or fibrous cellular cloth, stockings and tennis shoes and a water-proof felt hat, one was ready for anything. If soaked by a sudden downpour, a few minute’s walk in the sun would dry one; if walking difficult tacubas, or clambering over huge fallen trees, of which there were any number throughout the forest, or climbing precipitous and slippery hills one was never hampered by unsuitable dress.

Of course there are many wildernesses where it is unnecessary for a woman to wear knickerbockers and where there is no reason why she should defy public prejudice by doing so; but the woman who attempts to tramp through the South American jungle will find that safety and comfort make them absolutely essential.

One realized as never before with what handicaps woman has tried to follow the footsteps of man; with the result that physical exhaustion has robbed her of all the joys of life in the open.

Returning to our day in the jungle; we tramped silently over the sodden ground, now and then sending some panic-stricken Macaw or Parrot screeching from its roost. After an hour the rain ceased and the sun shone brightly, but where we were, many yards beneath the vast mat of tree-top foliage, only single spots and splashes of light broke the solid shadows. For a long distance we trod silently on deep mould and moss, and not a sound of beast or bird broke the stillness. As we crossed a swirling creek on the trunk of a mighty fallen tree, something fluttered ahead. We could not see what it was. Closer we came and still the object remained indistinct; we seemed to see a butterfly and yet it appeared impossible. At last we marked it down on a fern frond and crept up until our eyes were within two feet. Nothing was visible but the graceful lacery of the frond, until a slanting beam of sunlight struck it and there, close before us, was the ghost of a butterfly! It spread fully three inches but was wholly transparent save for three tiny spots of azure near the edge of the hind wings (_Haetera piera_). As we looked, it drifted to a double-headed flower of scarlet, and when it alighted, the scarlet of the flower and the green of the leaf were as distinct as if seen through thin mica, while the faint gray haze of the insect’s wings were marked only by the indistinct veination. The appearance of this ghostly butterfly amid the silence and awe-inspiring stillness of the reeking jungle was most impressive.

[Illustration]

Then came an interruption, so sudden and unrelenting that it seemed to reach to the very heart of nature. A Red “Baboon” raised his voice less than fifty yards away, and even the leaves seemed to tremble with the violence of the outburst of sound. A long, deep, rasping, vibrating roar, followed by a guttural inhalation hardly less powerful. After a dozen connected roars and inbreathings the sound descended to a slow crescendo, almost died away and then broke out with renewed force.

We crept swiftly toward the sound, treading as softly as possible and soon, in a high bulletwood, we saw three of the big red monkeys. The male passed on out of sight, and the second, a medium-sized animal, followed. The third was a mother with her baby clinging tightly to her back. She climbed slowly, showing her rich light golden red fur and beard, while the arms and legs of her dark-furred baby were revealed as lines of darker color around her body.

Twenty minutes later we stalked another roaring male, and found four in this troop. We saw two of the females giving voice with the leader, shrill falsettos which became audible only during the less deafening inspiration.

We tried to think of a simile for the voice of this monkey and could only recur to that which always came to mind—the roar of wind, ushering in a cyclone or terrific gale. And yet there was ever present to the ear the feeling of something living—as if mingled with the elemental roar was the howl of a male jaguar. No sound ever affected us quite as this; seeming always to prestige some unnamed danger. While it lasted, the sense of peace which had been inspired by the calmness and silence of the jungle gave place to a hidden portent of evil. Yet we loved it, and the savage delight which we took in this and other wilderness sounds made our pulses leap.

THE DROWNED FOREST.

At the engine house a ten foot dam had been thrown across the Hoorie Creek bed, and the apparently slight cause had brought about wide reaching effects; this slight raising of the water throwing back the creek in many directions. One could hardly call it a lake as there was no wide body of water, and yet it had a shore line of more than ten miles, reaching out a long finger-like extension up every side valley. The original creek was only a few feet wide and the jungle grew down to the very bank. So now the trees were deep under water.

All which were below the new level were dead, standing like an array of tall bare ghosts compared to the luxuriant forest all about. When on a rise of ground, one could trace the course of the lake by the lines of naked branches. And when steering one’s canoe between the leafless trunks, the effect was most startling. The sunlight came through in a way different from any tropical forest. Every leaf had fallen, leaving the trees as bare as in a northern winter and stripping the vines and bush-ropes, but the condition of the parasites and air-plants was most interesting. All those which were truly parasitic, living on the life-sap of their hosts, were of course also dead, but the orchids and other air-plants were flourishing—showing as large tufts or sprays of light green here and there. In places the branches had a beaded effect, so numerous and yet so isolated were the epiphytes.

We drifted silently along, by the impetus of a touch of the paddle on a passing trunk. Orchids were in blossom, and ferns, mosses and lichens ran riot in orange, brown and ivory patches on the tree-trunks. Muricots and the fierce perai were abundant here, and now and then some fish broke water, throwing rings of light into the shadowy places. Spiders, ants and a host of other wingless insects were crawling on many of the trunks, made captive by the flood. Their inability to walk on the water was evident when we knocked some of them off, so they must have lived on their island trees for the last year, the time of existence of the dam. The spiders were legion in species, hardly two alike, from minute ones, shaped like nothing else under heaven, with relatively enormous hooks and thorns on their brightly colored abdomens, to giant tarantulas, who stood up and threatened us before beating a dignified retreat.

[Illustration: FIG. 87. THE DROWNED FOREST.]

The increase of water had attracted many water-loving birds, and great Rufous Kingfishers[67] swung past us, strong-winged, beautiful birds, carrying on their business of life in a virile, unhesitating way. Between the trunks flashed the White-banded Swallows[118] now hovering before a trunk and snatching a spider, now dipping at full speed for a floating gnat. A hollow rattling drew our attention upward, and there, gazing intently down at us, was a splendid Woodpecker—the Guiana Ivory-bill,[89] close kin to our Ivory-bill of the Florida swamps. Imagine a big Woodpecker with dark brown back, wings and tail, while the long erect crest, head, neck and breast are bright scarlet, shading into rich rufous on the under parts! Such a beauty looked down at us, and then without sign of fear dived into a hole.

The Indians, passing several times a day, with loads of cord wood in their ballyhoos or flat-bottomed boats, were familiar with the Woodpecker and asserted that the bird had no mate. It was a male and although we visited the place several times no female ever appeared. The dead tree which held the nest was called Aramaca by the Indians, and was about a foot and a half in diameter, with the entrance not less than sixty feet above the water. A living tree like it on the bank near by had obtuse entire leaves and large, brown, slightly curved pods. The trunk was rotten, especially at the water line, and as it could not have remained standing much longer, we decided to investigate the home of this little-known bird.

We hailed the first Indians who appeared and set them to work felling the tree. The Woodpecker flew out at the first stroke of the axe, and remained close by, showing little fear or anxiety. We landed and the Indians made the trunk fall in our direction. It struck the water with a terrific splash, breaking into several lengths, and finally coming to rest with the hole upward. Running out along the floating log we found that the nest contained a single bird, with no trace of addled eggs or other young. The opening was a circle, four inches in diameter, and the cavity fourteen inches deep. The young bird was about five days old, featherless and downless, but the sprouting feather tracts were very distinct.

On the edge of the branches of the lower mandible, about three-quarters of the way to their base, were two round, white knobs or warts, and a large white patch like an abnormally large egg-tooth was at the tip of each mandible. These structures were undoubtedly direction marks for aiding the parent in finding the mouth of the young bird in the darkness of the nest chamber. When the mouth was open they formed the four corners, with the throat cavity in the centre.

A most remarkable collection of creatures gathered on the upper side of their wrecked tree, tenants of the bark and wood for the last year. Two small green-headed lizards made flying leaps and escaped ashore. But marooned for life were several species of bark beetles (_Nyctobates giganteus_ and _Paxillus leachii_), a huge boring beetle, and spiders galore. We noticed a slight disturbance among the bits of floating bark and pith, and scooped up a most wonderful creature—a true bug, perfectly flat, with the sides of its body drawn out into irregular flat serrations, while in color it was the very essence of lichened bark or dead leaf. Placed on a piece of wood it instantly drew in its legs and clung tightly. If it had not been frightened by the water we could have handled it a dozen times without knowing it was an insect.

A few yards away a pair of Mealy Amazon Parrots[63] were shrieking and flying restlessly about a great Mora tree, but we could not discover their nest. On our way home a dainty Blue Honey Creeper[136a] alighted on the bow of our canoe; rich deep blue except for wings, tail and throat which were black. The feet and legs were clear yellow, showing most conspicuously against the plumage.

A pair of Great Green Cassiques[150] had swung their four-foot pendent nest from the tallest limb of a tree standing in the water, and we spent ten minutes watching the male court his mate. As he uttered his incoherent medley of liquid cowbell-like notes, he bent his neck, thrusting his head far downward and forward, and at the same time throwing both wings forward and around in a semicircle. As this curious action was completed, the vocal utterance came to a close and the performance was over. The early stages in the evolution of such a courtship may be observed in our common Cowbird of the north, and a further developed stage in the little Guiana Cowbird.

THE CITY OF THE CASSIQUES.

On the first day of our arrival, even before we came in sight of the clearing, we heard the cries of the splendid big Orioles or Cassiques, known all over Guiana as Bunyahs. In the creek bed below the dam, but within the radius of the clearing, stood a medium sized tree and among its branches a colony of Scarlet-backed Cassiques[152] were flying back and forth from their nests.

We made a mental note of them at the time but passed on without giving them more than a glance. Later near the bungalow we occasionally saw them in small numbers associating, as we have already stated, with the Lavender Jays.[161]

As we wished to take a number of young Cassiques back to New York with us and to study the colony as thoroughly as we could in the space of a week’s time, we started out early one morning for the Cassiques’ tree. The long pendent nests were all seventy feet or more from the ground. Taking the rusty climbing irons from their case, we recalled vividly the last time they had been in use—a cold June day in Nova Scotia, when the nesting hole of a Three-toed Woodpecker had been the goal. How different were these tropical surroundings!

Bravely the start up the tree was made; jab and pull, jab and pull, while the straps pressed in on ankle and knee, giving that peculiar sensation that cannot be described, but which every climbing naturalist knows so well. Ten, twenty, thirty feet were scaled, and then one’s hand on the opposite side of the trunk broke through some tiny earthen tunnels, and, like many an unfortunate telegraph-line-man, struck a live wire. At least, the sensation was very much the same, only the electric shocks were here progressive, and when they had reached the elbow, they were seen to be a numerous and enthusiastically defensive horde of ants. At one end a pair of jaws gave a firm point of leverage and attachment, whereby the insect could secure a footing while operating the sting from the opposite end of his anatomy.

There have been martyrs to science as well as religion, but much as one might desire to look into those nests only forty feet above, it may be doubted if any man could have controlled his feelings and coördinated his muscles sufficiently to continue the ascent. The details of the descent were hazy; an exceedingly rough trunk seemed to shoot upward through one’s embrace until the ground was reached and the Cassiques screamed their delight.

They had seen many of the four-handed folk foiled in a similar manner, and now this new enemy, who scaled the trunk with two hands and two spurs was equally baffled by the tiny allies of the birds!

But study the colony we must, and selecting a line of soft, springy underbrush, we had an Indian drop the tree on it A cloud of screaming Cassiques followed it to earth, scattering only as we ran up and began to gather the young birds. Out of the first nest there rushed a lizard about a foot in length, brown, with head and fore-legs bright green. He scurried like a streak of light across the red tailings, the speed sending him up on his hind legs, so that his track was bipedal.

[Illustration: FIG. 88. NESTS OF RED-BACKED CASSIQUES.]

Before we describe the condition of the colony as we found it when we reached the fallen tree, it will be interesting to record its early history as far as we know it. This was the first year of this colony of Cassiques, as last year there were none nearer the clearing than the mouth of Hoorie Creek, three and one-half miles away, where in a tree, overhanging the house of a black, a colony has been in existence for two years. Three months ago, in January, one Scarlet-backed Cassique was observed in the clearing at the mine, but it soon vanished. Within a few days, however, a number of these birds appeared, perhaps guided by the solitary scout. They set to work at once, establishing their new colony in the tree which we had cut down. So at the time we began to study this colony, it could not have been older than three months.

The tree stood alone in the centre of the tailings from the gold washing and 20 or 30 feet away from all the surrounding trees. The finely sifted sediment of the tailings had broadened out the water of the creek bed so that it flowed delta-like on both sides of the tree. With their characteristic intelligence, the Cassiques had taken advantage of this unusual condition, and were thus guarded from enemies, by the water, by the isolation from other trees and by the far more formidable stinging ants which probably for many years had had their home on the trunk of the tree. The little bird city as we found it contained 39 homes; three-quarters of which were on one branch, 70 feet from the ground, while 10 were suspended from a smaller branch, a few feet lower down. Of the 39 nests, 4 were only half finished, while 10 were empty, having been already used and deserted this season. The others may be divided as follows:

One nest contained an addled egg; white with brownish spots chiefly at the larger end.

One nest had one egg containing a week old embryo.

Two nests each had a skeleton of a well grown young bird; one of which had been caught about the neck, and the other about the legs by fine flexible tendrils which had caused their deaths.

There were altogether 28 young birds: 9 full-fledged, 16 with feathers just appearing, while 3 were recently hatched. They were distributed as follows:

14 nests contained 1 young bird. 7 nests contained 2 young birds.

The special distribution was as follows:

_Number and Condition of Young._ _Number of Nests._

2 well-fledged young in 2 nests. 1 well-fledged young in 5 nests. 2 partly fledged young in 4 nests. 1 partly fledged young in 8 nests. 2 newly hatched birds in 1 nest. 1 newly hatched bird in 1 nest.

The nests were typically Cassique-like, made of stout rootlets and grasses, while at the lower end was a cup-shaped lining of very fine grass and root hairs, forming a soft bedding. The nests varied from thirteen to eighteen inches in length, and all but five had an upper roosting chamber, built on above the entrance. These five were built directly beneath a group of others, and the bases of the ones above served as protecting roofs. This was a most interesting adaptation to varying conditions. Just before felling the tree we noticed in several instances that both parents shared in the work of bringing food to the young ones. Almost all of the young were uninjured by the fall of the tree. Three were thrown out of the nests and these we chloroformed in order to find what their food had been. The stomach of one was crammed with white seeds of two kinds; one nearly round and about as large as the head of a pin, while the others were longer, perhaps one-third of an inch in length. Mingled with these seeds were remains of numerous insects; beetles, grasshoppers and caterpillars. The two other birds, which were younger, and almost bare of feathers, had received chiefly animal food, as follows:—

1. A three-inch, smooth caterpillar, medium sized spider, many small bugs, and a mass of berry seeds.

2. Several one-inch cut-worms; spider; small iridescent beetle; yellow butterfly; a few berry seeds.

The young birds were almost without down, the adult plumage being outlined very shortly after hatching. In a bird of only four or five days the dull orange or yellowish color of the rump feathers shows plainly. When these break through their sheaths, the color is a dull rose; becoming redder as the feathers increase in length, but not attaining the brilliant scarlet of the parent birds until the succeeding moult. When full grown, these birds measure about ten inches in length and are glossy black in color, save only for the brilliant scarlet rump. The bill is a conspicuous greenish white, while the feet are black. The eyes of the nestling are dark hazel in color, while in the old birds the iris is of a most beautiful greenish blue.

The voice of the very young birds is a shrill incessant _peep! peep!_ when they are gaping for food, but the half-fledged youngsters utter solitary harsher notes under the same conditions. The five fully fledged birds had learned what fear was and instead of feeding, crouched down at the bottom of the artificial nest which Mr. Crandall made for them. But hunger overcame fear and before night all had taken food. We kept an Indian busy gathering a berry or fruit which looked, tasted and smelled much like a miniature tomato. The leaves of this low plant are large, deeply incised and studded above and below with numerous thorns. The plant is from three to six feet in height, is abundant in the clearing, and forms the favorite vegetable food of the Cassiques. In addition to this, the young birds had a few mealworms and ants’ eggs from our small store, and all the soft insects which our Indian could capture. After two full days of grasshopper catching, the pride of the noble red-man began to feel itself injured, and additional inducements in the way of tobacco were needed to sustain his interest in his orthopterous pursuits.

On the following day the oldest of the young Cassiques flew feebly to a low perch and nothing could induce him to return to his fellows again. He uttered isolated call-notes, which however, at the approach of food, merged at once into the baby scream.

We had carried the young Cassiques a third of a mile to the veranda of the bungalow, where they were put out of sight and sound of their parents; yet early next morning four Cassiques had discovered their offspring and were flying back and forth close to the house carrying food in their beaks. In an hour no fewer than twenty Cassiques had collected, and on placing the young out in a low tree, the parents came at once and fed them.

One bird which we watched carefully brought masses of caterpillars which it inserted within the wide mouth of the young. Although the young birds were mixed up, five or six of the same size being placed together in one artificial nest, yet there was no question about recognition on the part of the old birds. At least there was no reckless undirected feeding; certain young were fed by certain adults.

The second day after we had taken the young birds, no Cassiques came to feed them, and we found the reason was that the entire flock had begun to found a new colony in the very nearest tree to the one we had cut down, about twenty feet away. This too was isolated and protected both by shallow water and by the vicious tunneling ants.

Some of the new nests must have been started the day before, as the roost chambers were complete and in several the top of the nest itself was finished. The rains had been rather heavy for a few days and may have influenced the early building of the shelters above the nest. To the three or four inches of nest the birds were bringing beakfuls of fibres, both sexes working energetically. We were glad to know that our wholesale destruction of the first colony site had wrought no permanent change. At the rate the birds were building, the second colony would be in a flourishing state in another two weeks.

These Red-backed Cassiques[152] together with their near relatives the Yellow-backs[153] are most interesting birds, and a careful study of the growth and daily routine of a colony would yield most valuable results. They seem to trust more to the presence of man as a protection against enemies than to the guardianship of wasps, but both methods are to be found. We traced these birds all the way up the Barama, and from what we could learn, none were found higher up, the colony at Hoorie Mine being the farthest outpost.

NIGHT LIFE.

Owing to our brief stay and the difficulty of exploration in this hilly and densely underwooded country, we gained little thorough knowledge of the vertebrate fauna hereabouts. The phase of tropical life which, during the week of our stay, was most striking, was the wonderful host of insects attracted by the electric lights in the evening. The bungalow contained four large rooms, two on each side of a wide central passage, extending through the house—a kind of interior veranda, open front and back. This was the dining room, where every day we feasted upon delicious dishes of peccary, tinamou, curassow and paca, or “bush-hog,” “maam,” “powie” and “labba,” as we learned to call them in the vernacular.

Here during the evening meal, after the lights were turned on, came legions of the most curious, the most beautiful winged creatures imaginable. We all turned entomologists and never tired of admiring the wonderful colors, and bizarre shapes which night after night were revealed in never-ending array. The first night Crandall sent up an excited call of “Get a vial! Get a vial!” and this became our vesper slogan. From the yard, or veranda, or room, or kitchen hut, would come the call from some of our party, “Get a vial!” and the one nearest the array of bottles in the improvised laboratory would hasten to the aid of the discoverer, who would probably be found with eyes glued to some strange creature and blindly reaching out behind for the approaching vial, in which to capture his prize.

There were few insects of very small size and many indeed were gigantic, as judged by our standards of the north. None were unpleasant and they seldom attempted suicide in soup or cocoa. They were content to flutter a moment about the electric globe and drop quietly to the white table-cloth. Praying mantises, or “rar-hosses” as our southern negroes call them, would whirr in and climb awkwardly over the bouquets of flowers, swaying from side to side and now and then reaching out for some passing insect, with a sudden unflexing of those murderous, deceptive fore-legs. One which flew on the table was a new species, which has been named _Stagmomantis hoorie_.[E] If exercise during meals is good for one’s digestion then we were hygienic in the extreme, for twenty times in succession we would have to go to the veranda laboratory to chloroform our captives.

The second evening, although a heavy rain was falling, a bewildering number of moths, mostly small but of exquisite patterns, dashed in between the drops. There were almost never two alike; indeed among one hundred species captured on two evenings, there were but two duplicates.

It is folly to try to describe with any exactness the beauty, even of the commonest, plainest insect, and how much more impossible to convey an accurate idea of these tropical beauties. Think of a sapling near an electric light covered with fifty or sixty exquisite moon moths (_Thysania agrippina_)—pale creamy white, banded and looped with lines of brown—none less than nine inches in spread of wing and many reaching an even foot across.

The hawk-moths that came to our table were all different, all beautiful; one a study in pale yellow; another variegated green with blended purples and red (_Argeus labruscae_) on the hinder wings. This one too bore on its eyes the long shaft of a pollen stalk from some night flowering orchid.

Then a moth would come, recalling somewhat the Promethea and Polyphemus of our childhood’s collecting, but with great transparent mirrors in the centre of the wings (_Attacus [Hesperia] erycina_); next, two as different as possible but which we learned later were sexes of the same species (_Dirphia tarquinia_)—the female, large, plain brown with a forked streak of light across the fore-wings: her mate a full third smaller with rosy hind-wings and fore-wings frosted white, save for two conspicuous circles at the fork of his white lightning.

On the third evening there were fewer moths, but many more beetles and grasshopper-like insects. Green was the predominating color among the moths this evening—from palest yellow-green to darkest bottle-green. In some the green had a border sending ray-like lines across all four wings. Yellow and white were the colors almost always present in combination with the green, the yellow being usually confined to the hinder wings. A stain of gold was sometimes laid over the green, and in one beauty the green seemed to have been spattered at hazard over a milky-white surface. This proved to be a female of a species known only from a single male (_Racheolopha nivetacta_) the female proving to be twice as large as her mate.

Instead of burying the insects in envelopes or mounting them in the orthodox way with the fore-wings raised unnaturally until the hind edge is at right angles to the body, we merely supported the wings, and allowed them to dry in the natural position. By doing this we usually lost sight of part of the hinder wing, but we gained the true relation of the spots and patterns on the fore-wings to those on the thorax and the result was in many instances surprising. For example, when spread, the fore-wings of one tiny moth (_Pronola fraterna_) showed two meaningless black spots forming each one-third of a circle. When closed naturally, these united with the black abdomen to form a perfect black circle stamped upon a mat of velvety cream color.

All words are inadequate to describe these exquisite creatures; one with the lightning flash of gold across its cloudy background; another, enscribed with Chinese hieroglyphics; a third of lavender, yellow and russet mosaics set about large transparent windows of opalescent blue.[F] One of the most exquisite was a little moth (_Chrysocestis fimbriaria_) spreading less than an inch, with wings of iridescent mother-of-pearl rimmed with dull golden, on which was set a score of embossed beads of the most brilliant gilt, flashing as no gem ever flashed.

If one could spend a season here studying the motions alone of these insects, it would well repay him. One moth, iridescent with a broad border of black (_Eudioptis hyalinata_), curled the abdomen straight up into the air, and separated its extremity into a wide-spread tuft of hairs. These radiated like the tentacles of a sea anemone, and when the whole was waved about, it looked like some strange crawling caterpillar, holding its head high above the prostrate wings of the moth.

The last evening, as if to make our departure still harder, the insects increased in number. Walking sticks five and six inches in length skimmed through the air, their bodies, legs and wings dark in color and ornamented with irregular scales and projections, until their resemblance to a jagged-barked twig was perfection. If this species were represented by thousands of individuals in its haunts, birds or four-footed enemies would soon learn to detect even such an exact counterfeit, and the protective value would be lost. But in the tropics the infinite variety is the key-note to success in protective adaptation. On the table-cloth at one time would be perfect green leaves (katydid-like orthopters), green leaves with large worm-eaten defects or spottings (some of the mantises) and many brown, lichened leaves and twigs (moths and walking sticks). Even if two of the same species appeared at once, the chances were that one would be much the larger and of an entirely different shade with a distinct individual pattern of mimic defects.

Big owl moths (_Hyperchiria liberia_, _H. nausica_, _Automeria cinctistriga_ and others) alternated with tree-hoppers of all sizes with branched and rebranched horns rising from their thoraxes (_Hemiptycha [Umbonia] spinosa_ and others). The prize of one evening was a grasshopper (_Pterochroya ocellata_) which came in on the sleeve of the coolie butler. It had alighted on the white cloth as he crossed the yard between the kitchen and the house. Its wide, jagged fore-wings met closely above the back, forming a half green, half brown leaf, complete even to the mid and side ribs. On the hind wings were what we could merely guess were either sexual ornaments or warning markings, visible only in flight. The ground color of these translucent wings was a finely mottled yellow and brown, while painted on the pleated surface were two eye-spots like those upon the feathers of a Peacock-pheasant, a dark velvety shaded portion with a delicately shaded ocellus at one edge.

The last insect captured was a tree-hopper as big as a cicada, mottled and marbled on the fore-wings, and stained scarlet on the hinder.

In Appendix C, pages 397, 398, I have added a list of a few of the moths and Orthoptera collected on the dining table at Hoorie, which have been identified.