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.