JUNGLE LIFE AT AREMU.
SOME PAGES FROM MY DIARY.
(_By C. William Beebe._)
Even more to the Gold Mine of Aremu than to Hoorie is the application
“island” or “oasis” in the jungle, appropriate. The clearing is about
twenty acres in extent, approximately circular, with the magnificent
forest trees crowding densely to the very edge. The bungalow and mine
shaft are on the summit of a symmetrical hill, which slopes evenly and
steeply down on all sides. The hill is about a hundred feet in height and
yet the trees far down at the foot tower high above it.
The concession includes about seven and a half square miles, and in many
places where the rock outcrops, well paying deposits of gold are visible.
At Aremu there is a soft quartz ledge about eight feet wide running
almost vertically and rich in gold. Often the metal is visible and a
small lens shows the yellow crystals encrusting the white matrix.
The first day at Aremu we went down in the mining bucket, two and
two—each clinging to the wire cable and balancing the opposite person.
Down and down went the swaying bucket, slowly revolving—the heat and
sunshine of the upper air replaced by the cool darkness—damp and chilly
with rich earthen, clayey smells. Eighty-five feet below the surface the
four leads began, one a hundred feet along the vein. This consists of a
ferrugineous gold-bearing quartz, somewhat decomposed by the dissolving
out of several of its constituents. The candles shed a flickering light
on the slimy, dripping walls and for a few moments one felt completely
confused—so hard was it to stand there shivering and yet realize that a
few yards overhead was brilliant tropical light and sunshine, gaudy birds
and butterflies. One seemed in a wholly different world.
[Illustration: FIG. 124. AREMU GOLD MINE, SHOWING BUNGALOW AND MINE
SHAFT.]
But though forever buried in dripping darkness, there were as bright
colors here as in the living creatures above ground. Each side of the
quartz vein ran an endless series of beautifully stratified, decomposed,
talc-like clays; purest white, orange, slate-colored, pink, blue, yellow
and brown—one hue succeeding another like some strange fossil rainbow.
Outside near the bottom of the hill, two gaping holes showed where the
blacks who discovered the gold years ago worked the ledge by hand—leaving
even in their tailings enough gold to make it well worth working over.
Now electric stamps, run by great boilers, do the work, all brought up
the Little Aremu bit by bit, with the greatest labor, at seasons of high
water.
Here as at Hoorie a few pork-knockers were allowed to locate their
diminutive claims and glean what superficial metal they could from
surface deposits. A mile away to the west was a large outcropping
known as “England” and here four or five blacks were working. On each
Saturday night they would bring their little packets of gold to the
store to receive credit checks or receipts. Once as we were crouching in
the jungle watching some “cushie” or parasol ants, two of these black
pork-knockers passed within a yard without seeing us, each with his
little bundle of worldly belongings on his head, topped by a wooden gold
pan.
I have mentioned panning as the most primitive method of mining, next
to which comes the “Long Tom.” At “England” we found a third advance—a
method of breaking up partly decomposed gold-bearing quartz. A deep
narrow pit showed where the material was found, shovelfuls being thrown
up on two successive ledges before it reached the surface. It was then
carried to an open thatched roof beneath which was a primitive, two-man
power stamp. This was nothing but a gigantic hammer made of two logs,
the hammer part covered with metal, and the handle hung in a socket,
so that the centre of gravity lay toward the head. Two men, balancing
themselves by clinging to uprights, stepped in unison on the tip of the
handle, their combined weight depressing it and raising the head; then
stepping off suddenly the hammer came down with great force on a pile of
broken gold-quartz, fed into a hardened hollow beneath it. This mining
enterprise required no less than five men, and they were taking out about
$1.20 each a day.
Comparing the division of labor among men with that among cells, we may
liken the single “pork-knocker” to an Amoeba, where a single man and
a single cell perform all the necessary functions; the Long Tom with
two men is like the simpler sponges—where one set of cells secretes
the skeleton of spicules, giving shape to the whole, and another set
lashes the water and absorbs the tiny bits of food. The crusher with
its five men, each performing his individual labor, corresponds to some
slightly higher organism—a jelly-fish or anemone,—while the electrically
run stamps, employing several score of men, is like the complex cell
machinery of a beetle or butterfly.
The Aremu Mine clearing had been in existence only about six months, and
the trees which were felled had been sawed up or burnt so that there
was no such abundance of wood-loving insects as at Hoorie. At night a
few Longicorn beetles would appear and buzz about, but almost no moths.
In fact during our whole stay only one moth of large size was seen. One
small species of moth, with wings of a general rusty-red, a light line
along the front margin and spreading only an inch, appeared in numbers on
the evening of April 2d. The following day we saw many of the Gray-rumped
Swifts snatching them from the bushes in the clearing. I brought a single
specimen back and found it was a species new to science, which has been
named _Capnodes albicosta_.[H]
[Illustration: FIG. 125. DESCENDING THE SHAFT.]
Walking sticks and mantises were more abundant. Some of the former had
well-developed wings on which they whirred about the bungalow; others
had none at all or reduced to a scale-like vestige. In an individual
of a third group the wings, while perfect, were pitiful affairs, mere
mockeries of pinions, barely an inch in extent, while the body of the
insect was almost five inches in length. When thrown into the air the
poor “stick” expanded his wings to the fullest but wholly in vain. There
was just sufficient spread of wing to act as a parachute and allow him to
scale safely to the ground.
[Illustration: FIG. 126. WALKING STICK INSECT.]
We watched him several days and never tired of his peculiar walk, swaying
from side to side. Often when at rest the front pair of legs would be
extended parallel with the antennæ, along the anterior line of the body,
making the imitation twig eight inches over all (Fig. 126).
As we walked through the jungle wood roads close to the clearing, large
forest dragon-flies, small tiger beetles (_Odontochila confusa_, _O.
cayennensis_ and _O. lacordairei_) and a few yellow-spotted Heliconias
were the most noticeable insects. One or two of the giant metallic
Buprestid beetles (_Euchroma goliath_) were sure to be seen flying about
the fallen trees, and our Indian hunter invariably made a dash at them,
and as invariably missed the active, alert creatures.
Passing by a great mora stump in the clearing, our attention was
attracted one day by a large caterpillar hanging dangling about two feet
from the ground, squirming and wriggling vigorously. We ran up and saw a
most interesting sight. Through a hole, about three quarters of an inch
in diameter, protruded one of the claws of a good-sized scorpion. These
villainous pincers had a secure grip on two of the long head spines of
the caterpillar, which was dangling helplessly. As the latter wriggled,
the scorpion made attempt after attempt to draw its victim inside the
hole, a most absurd thing, as from tip to tip of spines the caterpillar
measured almost two inches across. After watching this tableau I caught
the scorpion’s claw in a pair of pliers, drew him out, and, Milady
holding him up with the caterpillar, I photographed them together.
The caterpillar was a most gorgeous creature; pale green, fading into
yellowish at the posterior edge of each segment, while the movable
joints were dark brown. On the seven posterior segments there were six
rows of branched spines, the stalks pale orange and the branches pale
blue—the three colors, green, orange and blue, making a most harmonious
combination. On the anterior five segments there were two additional rows
of spines, small ones, low down on the sides. The eight spines on the
head segment pointed forward, projecting beyond the head. The longest
spines were on the second, third and caudal segment and were over three
quarters of an inch. All the blue branchlets ended in a dark, tiny needle
point, and they stung like nettles as we found when we accidentally
touched some.
I had never heard of a contest between two such creatures, and should
think the scorpion must have been hard put to it for food, to make
frantic attempts to secure such a prickly mouthful.
[Illustration: FIG. 127. SCORPION AND CATERPILLAR AFTER THEIR BATTLE.]
South of the bungalow, scrubby bush had been allowed to grow up and
here was a scattering of non-forest birds; three pairs of Silver-beak
Tanagers[146] and a pair of Seed-eaters.[131] Gray-rumped Swifts[72]
coursed over the clearing and Toucans, Macaws and Orange-headed
Vultures[52] were occasionally seen from the bungalow, while a pair of
splendid Red-crested Woodpeckers[88] hammered the trunks and leaped from
tree to tree all through the day.
In the clearing itself we saw little of mammalian life, although we dined
daily on all the bush meat from bush-pig to acourie. The whitened bones
of an ocelot lay in perfect arrangement at the edge of the clearing fifty
yards from the bungalow, picked clean by ants but for some unaccountable
reason untouched by Vultures. The animal had been shot at night, chicken
stealing.
At daybreak the red howlers came to the edge of the clearing and awakened
us from our slumbers by their wonderfully weird chant.
Jaguars were not seen or heard, except one reported by the mail carrier
who runs between Aremu and Perseverance Landing. Some years ago an Indian
near here found a litter of jaguar cubs containing two normally colored
and one black individual. The latter was purchased by a colonist and sent
to the London Zoo.
A dull-colored, harmless snake, four feet long, with two rows of keeled
scales along the back, was the only serpent we found in or near the
clearing. Lizards were everywhere and one very large iguana inhabited a
bit of wood-road, but evaded all our efforts to add him to our mess pot.
The Amphibians alone in this region would well repay months of study.
Our brief visit gave us only a glimpse of them. The commonest frog
in the jungle near the clearing was a medium sized, dark-bodied one
(_Dendrobates trivittatus_) with green legs and two pale green bands,
one running around the front edge of the head, back over the eyes and
down the sides of the body; the second line being beneath the first. The
under parts were covered with blue lines and mottlings. The first half
dozen seen were normal in appearance, but then one was encountered which
instantly drew my attention. A closer look showed that the back of the
animal was covered with a solid mass of living tadpoles, each over half
an inch in length. When I urged him into a jar, two tadpoles were scraped
off and wriggled vigorously. When put into water they sank to the bottom
and made no attempt to swim, although the tail fins were well developed
and there was as yet no trace of limbs.
I kept this frog in a box with wet earth and a puddle of water, and two
days later half the tadpoles had left his back and were swimming strongly
in the muddy water. They were attached to the back of their parent only
by their sucking disks, and the object of the strange association seemed
only temporary and not intended to last until the tadpoles became adult.
They would probably drop off and swim away one by one when their father
entered some forest pool. This species of frog was very active and
capable of remarkably long jumps.
As I shall mention later, the sharp eyes of my Indian hunter spied a
most remarkable frog in the jungle one day, which I brought home in my
pocket. Its scheme of protective form and color was perfect—the hue of
dried leaves and withered mosses, with deeply serrated sides and a high
irregular ridge over each eye. I placed it among some dried leaves and
tried to focus on it with my Graflex, but could not find it. Then I
stooped down and although the frog had not moved and I knew the square
yard within which it was resting, it took me a full minute before I
located it, and optically disentangled it from its surroundings. I have
never seen such a case of complete dissolution and disappearance. When I
alarmed it, the frog closed its eyes—thus obliterating the dark spots of
its irides, and then little by little opened them again.
Every evening at half past five o’clock we would troop down to the
stream and swim and paddle about on the sand bars in the half day—half
moonlight. The water was cool and refreshing and the temperature of the
air invigorating at this hour, and to lie on one’s back and look up at
the lofty moras and other trees stretching their branches fifty yards or
more overhead was a sensation never to be forgotten.
We spent ten days at the Aremu Mine, and it speaks well for the working
possibilities of this region that I was able to rise at five o’clock
in the morning and with intervals only for meals, keep up steady
work—exploring, photographing and skinning until ten o’clock at night,
when usually the last skin would be rolled up or the last note written.
I would then tumble, happy and dead tired, into bed and know nothing
until the low signal of our Indian hunter summoned me in the dusk of the
following morning. I worked harder than I ought to have done even in our
northern countries and yet felt no ill effects.
What impressed me chiefly in regard to the birds of this region was,
first the abundance, and second, the great variety. In the course of the
ten days of our stay, we identified 80 species of birds, and observed at
least a full two hundred more which we were unable to classify except as
to family or genus. Wishing to study the birds alive I refrained from
shooting as much as possible and chose to make this expedition rather
one of preparation in learning what tropical wood-craft I could from an
excellent Indian hunter, than of gathering a collection and thereby a
lengthy list of mere names. When, sometime in the future, we return to
this splendid field of study and spend months in careful observation of
some such limited region, we may hope to add something of real value to
our knowledge of the ecology of these most interesting forms of tropical
life. We have the results of the collector, par-excellence, in our museum
cases of thousands of tropical bird-skins. Now let us learn something of
the environment and life history of the living birds themselves.
[Illustration: FIG. 128. MILADY AND THE GIANT MORA TREE.]
It is against my rule to write in diary form, but owing to the limited
time we spent at Aremu and the series of events, some of which extended
over two or three days, I have made an exception in this case and will
put down a few of the incidents of jungle life in the order in which I
observed them. Far from giving all the observations made here on birds
and other creatures, I have included only those of greatest interest,
which will convey an idea of the conditions of life here as compared to
those in our northern woods and forests.
MARCH 28th.—Leaving the house before noon I crossed the Little Aremu by a
foot bridge, at the western edge of the clearing. The stream here flows
gently and smoothly; it is from one to four feet deep, and ten to fifteen
feet wide. Following it upstream, one is stopped within a few yards by
a perfect tangle and maze of interlocked vines and trunks showing what
it was like lower down before the hand of man hewed and blasted a free
channel. The forest about the mine clearing is probably near the extreme,
even of tropical growth. One feels absolutely dwarfed as one gazes up—far
up, at the lofty branches, where birds like tiny insects are flying
about, in a world by themselves. The trunks are clean, hard and straight
as marble columns and the undergrowth is thin, giving access in almost
any direction, yet dense enough to harbor many species of birds and
animals.
Turning south along a wood road, I started on my first tramp into the
jungle. It was the hottest part of the day, but there was all the
difference in the world between sun and shade, and here in the recesses
of the forest it was pleasantly cool, and birds and insects were abundant.
One of the first sounds which came to my ears was a loud, intermittent
rustling among the dried leaves, marked now and then by a low grunt.
Crawling up quietly behind a great mossy log, I peered over and was
surprised to find that I had been stalking a huge tortoise. I certainly
might reasonably have expected to see a mammal instead of a reptile,
as our tortoises of the north are not in the habit of attracting our
attention by their vocal efforts. This was a South American Tortoise
(_Testudo tabulata_) of the largest size, not far from two feet in
length, and he was busy rooting in the ground for some small nuts which
had fallen in great quantities from the tree overhead and settled among
the débris of the leaf mould. The shell of the tortoise was high and
arched, dark brown in color with a bright yellow centre in each shield.
There were two deep abrasions on the shell, apparently caused by the
teeth of some carnivore.
These tortoises were very common and we had many delicious soups and
stews made of their meat. They were, however, heavy and awkward to carry
and we never bothered to bring them home unless on the return journey
and near the clearing. In one individual we found eight eggs about to be
deposited.
My wood road led up a gentle incline down which logs had been skidded,
and after a half mile it merged gradually into the jungle. At the last
sign of the axe I sat down on a fallen trunk and quietly waited. Three
Blue Honey Creepers[136a]—two males and one green female,—dashed here
and there in the branches close overhead. They uttered sharp cheeps,
until the males flew at each other and began fighting furiously—ascending
for fifty feet in a whirling spiral of hazy blue and black, and then
clinching and falling to earth, where they clung together claw to claw,
and pecked viciously and in silence, their beautiful plumage disheveled
and broken. The lady—heartless cause of all this terrible strife—cheeped
in low tones overhead and nonchalantly plucked invisible dainties from
the undersides of leaves. I took a step toward the combatants and they
separated and vanished, the lady, be it noted, following swiftly in their
wake.
Close upon this melodrama came a fairy Manakin, black with a conspicuous
white chin. I never saw another and cannot identify it, distinctly
marked though it was. Through the forest came the low belling of Green
Cassiques;[150] then no sound save the drowsy hum of insects high
overhead. The most frequent noise came from falling leaves, twigs and
branches—yes, leaves, for “gently as a falling leaf” in this tropic world
might mean, “like the stroke of a sledge hammer!” The realization comes
again, as a yellow leaf eddies past my seat, that autumn is distributed
throughout the whole year, while the freshly opening pink and reddish
shoots on every hand show that spring is never absent.
[Illustration: FIG. 129. AËRIAL ROOTS OF BUSH-ROPE.]
I observed something circling about in an opening to my left and on
examining it found a peculiar flat cake-like wasp nest, with the solitary
pair of owners (_Polybia_ sp.) on the rim. It was attached to the
extremity of a long, slender bush-thread dangling from a great distance
above. There was not a breath of air and the secret of the circling
motion—the nest moving irregularly in an ellipse of about ten feet—was
not solved until with my glasses I made out a small monkey—a marmoset
apparently—clinging to a branch near where the bush-thread started. The
little creature had found some store of food in a hollow or crevice of
the bark. To get his hand in, he was compelled to push aside the dangling
curtain of aërial root-threads, and this occasional motion was enough to
send the end, far below, sailing around in a large circle.
As I resumed my seat, a great beetle, like a polished emerald, alighted
close beside me,—not heavy and blundering, like a June-bug or scarab,
but nervous, flicking its wings wasp-like, ready at an instant’s alarm
to whirr away as swiftly as light. A beautifully marked Longicorn
beetle buzzed past and alighted ten feet up a sapling, leaving me
eying it enviously, atremble with all my boyhood’s collecting ardor.
Heliconias sailed slowly past and one of the beautiful transparent jungle
butterflies alighted at my feet, with only a few dots of azure revealing
the position of the wings. White and yellow butterflies floated high in
air, where a hundred kinds of flowers flashed out among the green foliage.
Lizards were abundant in this little clearing, slipping along fallen
trees with sudden rushes and halts, or tearing madly after each other
with loud rustlings through the fallen leaves. Some were beautifully
colored, splashed with blue, orange and green; while other dark ones
had a network of delicate light lines crossing the back, cutting the
creatures up into likenesses of small lichened leaves.
When the sun shone out brightly, two or three minute midges danced before
my eyes—otherwise I was free from the “insect scourges” of the tropics!
The trees on this and all later days constantly drew from us exclamations
of delight. They were magnificent, awe-inspiring, and if I could think
of any stronger word of appreciation I should apply it at once to them.
Their immensity and apparent age made one reflect upon the transiency
of animal and human existence. Even the long-lived Parrots and Macaws
perching on their branches seemed like may-flies of a day compared with
these giants of the jungle, which had watched century upon century pass.
As I looked at the circle of trees bordering the clearing—a clearing
which itself was the result of the felling of only one such giant—the
great variety of trees was at once noticeable. Near relatives—brothers
and sisters, or fathers and sons—could not exist within each other’s
shadow. So it was that a dozen kinds were visible from my seat. One
splendid fellow sent up a perfectly rounded grayish column, one hundred
and fifty feet or more, propped with a single great fox-colored buttress,
sweeping gracefully out from the weaker side of the ground hold of the
trunk, like the train of a court lady’s dress.
Another column was round but deeply fluted, the trunk being rimmed with a
succession of scallops, while in a third tree known as Paddle-wood, this
was carried to an extreme, the trunk being little more than the point of
juncture of a dozen thin blade-like sheets of wood. The whole was of a
beautiful leaden-gray color.
The moras were the biggest and tallest trees within sight, and sent out
huge buttresses, twenty feet in all directions with space between them
for a good-sized room. The impression of security was perfect—it seemed
as if the strongest of winds could never overcome such a reinforced
structure.
Hearing near at hand the strange cicada _whirr!_ which we have described
in a previous chapter (page 23), I watched for the insect and soon traced
the sound to a very large cicada high up on the trunk of a tree. Wishing
to identify it and lacking other means of getting it, I backed away some
distance and brought it down with a 22 calibre shot cartridge. It is a
remarkable country indeed where one goes gunning for bugs! And not only
this, but I only winged my game! one pellet of lead breaking the main
vein of the right wing, bringing the insect to the ground where it buzzed
and flopped about until I caught and chloroformed it.
It was a beautiful species almost three inches in length with transparent
wings marbled with wavy black markings, and with the thorax and abdomen
ornamented with tufts of golden and brown hair (_Cicada grossa_).
Keeping to the left through the open underbrush I intersected another
wood road, then swung around and at last entered the clearing from the
southeast. Hearing a rustling I suspected another tortoise, and was about
to pass on when I saw leaves and twigs flying into the air behind a log.
Creeping from tree to tree I saw that the commotion was made by a trio
of Ant-thrushes or, as I prefer to call them, Antbirds. They took the
leaves and leaf mould in their beaks and threw them over their backs,
all three working side by side, covering a width of about two feet.
They were Woodcock Antbirds,[93] reminding one, in the general tone of
coloration of the upper parts, of that bird. The chin and throat were
black bordered with white which extended up the sides of the neck and
forward over the eyes. The tail was short and often held erect over the
back, while the strong legs and feet proclaimed them terrestrial rather
than arboreal. When flying or excited, a row of white spots flashed out
from all the wing feathers save the first two primaries, but when the
wings were closed only buff markings were visible. Now and then two of
the birds would spy some morsel of food at the same instant and a tussel
would ensue. With angry scolding cries the two contestants would strike
at each other with their beaks, with wings wide spread and the elongated
feathers of the back raised and parted, exposing the conspicuous white
base of the plumes, almost like a rosette. These white stars were
very conspicuous amid the dark shadows of the forest floor, vanishing
instantly when the wings were lowered. This color was not visible in
flight. Many of the species of this group of birds have a similar
concealed dorsal spot, and it must serve some definite purpose. When
the matter of dispute was devoured or had crawled away into safety, the
quarrel was at once forgotten and the birds began scratching peacefully
side by side as before.
A short distance beyond I encountered what I found later was the most
common assemblage of birds to be found in this region—a flock of Antbirds
and Woodhewers, with a few other species, such as Flycatchers and
Tanagers. One could not take even a short walk in the forest hereabouts
without observing several such flocks, numbering from a dozen to fifty or
more individuals.
The Antbirds comprise a family, _Formicariidae_, of which more than
two hundred and fifty species are known. They are rather generalized
passerine birds, which are found only in the tropical forests of northern
South America. Inconspicuous in color and retiring in habits it is only
when one becomes familiar with these tropical jungles that one realizes
how numerous these birds really are. Their notes are usually uttered only
at intervals and are often difficult to locate. They creep silently among
the lower branches or, as we have seen, search the ground for the insects
which form their food. The name Ant-thrush is rather a misnomer, for they
are not Thrushes, and while they are always attendant upon the swarms of
hunting ants yet they seldom feed upon the ants themselves, but on the
insects stirred up by the ferocious insects.
We know but little about the nesting habits of these birds, and we were
unable to locate a nest during our brief stay although we knew that
several were breeding near the clearing.
Like most other tropical families, Antbirds have been compelled by
competition to specialize, and we find some Shrike-like in habits as
well as appearance; others resembling the long-legged Pittas of the East
Indies, while the majority parallel Wrens, Warblers or Thrushes.
The Woodhewers of the well-named family _Dendrocolaptidae_, or
Tree-chisellers, form with the Antbirds a considerable percentage of the
smaller forest birds of this region. There are not far from three hundred
forms of these birds, all of dull colors—rufous or brown tones prevailing.
Woodhewers in the main parallel the Woodpeckers, and especially the Brown
Creepers, in their method of obtaining food. Their claws and feet are
strong, the legs short, and the tail feathers in the majority of species
are stiff and spine-like. They hitch up the trunks of trees, finding
their food in the chinks and crevices of bark, but not boring into the
wood like Woodpeckers. While the stiff tails show that all have probably
descended from tree-creeping ancestors, some Woodhewers have deserted the
trunks and have become Warbler-like in haunt and habit. Such a one is
the Cinnamon Spine-tail[94] or “Rootie” (p. 379). In the tropical forest
however, Woodhewers differ but little in their method of locomotion, and
one or more of these fox-colored birds hitching up a great trunk is one
of the commonest sights. There is remarkable adaptiveness in the bills,
some being stout and blunt, others long and curved.
The notes of these birds are, with the calls of the Toucans and Cotingas,
among those most frequently heard. In the early morning especially, the
sweet descending scales of single notes from various parts of the forest
forms a feature which is seldom lacking.
Just before I reached the clearing I flushed two labbas or pacas
(_Coelogenys paca_) which ran squealing almost from under my feet. These
are rodents, looking like giant Guinea-pigs about two feet in length,
with brown fur spotted with white. Their flesh is the most delicate of
all the “bush meat.”
Mr. Howell followed my tracks later in the afternoon and brought home a
Tamandua, or Lesser Anteater (_Tamandua tetradactyla_), which he shot in
a tree. This creature is rather sloth like in color and in development
of its claws, but its tail is prehensile, and nothing more unlike could
be imagined than the heads of the two animals, that of the sloth short,
round and blunt; the anteater’s long, slim and pointed.
MARCH 29th.—We had an excellent illustration this morning of how easily
one can get a totally wrong idea of the animal and bird life of a
tropical forest. Nine of us started out along a faint trail used by black
“pork-knockers,” which, after several miles of twisting and turning, led
to an outcropping of gold, known as “England,” all on Mr. Wilshire’s
concession. Throughout the whole tramp, although we lagged behind, we
noted not a single bird or animal of interest save for a scattering of
Toucans and Parrots. Every living creature fled before us or remained
hidden. One might thus tramp across a continent and report the tropics
to be barren of life, except in the tree-tops. Not only this, but the
few birds which flew over or were otherwise seen momentarily were
without exception brilliantly colored, and this would help to sustain
the wide-spread impression that tropical birds are invariably of bright
plumage, which is very untrue. There are really more dull-colored than
brilliant birds in the tropics.
[Illustration: FIG. 130. TAMANDUA. (Photo. by Sanborn.)]
At last I slip aside, let my companions go on, and make a detour to
the left of the trail. Here in the heart of the jungle I discover an
overgrown clearing with the skeleton of a hut in the centre. The ruin
itself is a thing of exquisite beauty, the half-decayed uprights and
roof saplings being interlaced and overhung with vines, the brilliant
scarlet, poppy-like passion flowers crowning all. From the blossoms
comes a busy hum of insects, in sharp contrast to the silence of the
trail along which we have come. In the virgin forest there is ever sharp
contrast. Brilliant bits of sunlight alternate with blackest shadow;
deathly silence is broken by the ear-piercing call of the Goldbird; the
dull earthy smell of the mould is suddenly permeated by the rare sweet
incense of some blossom or the penetrating musk of an animal or some huge
hemipterous insect.
In a clearing—even a deserted one like this and only a few yards in
extent—all is toned down. The odors are diffused and difficult to
analyze; the droning of bees alternates only with the sharper whirr of
a Hummingbird’s wings, either the brown White-eyebrowed one,[73] or the
beauty with long sweeping tail.[75] The Rufous-breasted Hummingbirds[74]
are abundant here and have quite a sweet song, a trill of twelve or
fifteen notes, slow at first but rapidly increasing and ascending.
The half hidden framework of the hut with the collapsed shelf and table,
tell of man’s past presence; so do the papaw, sugar-cane and banana run
riot; and suddenly we hear the sweet rollicking song of a little House
Wren,[124] man’s follower, filling the deserted glade with sweetness;
probably hoping that soon he will return and reclaim this fast vanishing
oasis. For when the trees and vines—already reaching up over the papaw
and bananas—close densely in, as they surely will, the jungle will become
sovereign again, and then the pair of tiny birds will flee. Not for them
are the dark silences, the tall sombre trunks. Their jubilant little
souls crave light and companionship. Many of the birds of the tropical
jungle have sweet single notes and calls—but most have harsh primitive
voices. All are characterized by a solemnity or plaintiveness of tone,
and none that I can recall have the joyful theme which fills the song of
this little pioneer from more civilized regions; a song which is out of
place away from mankind. Their sweetness has touched the heart of the
native Guianans, who call these Wrens God-birds.
It is nine o’clock, cloudy and cool, and I am sitting near the old hut
and write on a trunk fallen across the trail. A shuffling of feet comes
to my ears and soon a good-sized opossum, but smaller than ours of the
north, trots swiftly toward me. Not until he gets within arm’s reach does
he realize that something is wrong. I sit as immovable as stone and he
puts a grimy little hand on the very edge of this journal. His nose works
furiously, his rat-like beady eyes fairly bulge. Then he turns, just as
I grab at his tail, but his hind claws scratch my arm so severely that
I loose him, and he flees back on his trail—rolling awkwardly along but
making remarkably good time. He was probably on his way home after an
early morning’s hunt. Thus the jungle folk have already begun to close in
on this deserted clearing.
An hour later as I am kneeling quietly some six feet from the log, busy
liberating a beautiful little butterfly from the tangle of a spider’s
web, I am surprised to see the same opossum trot past. I know him because
he has a kink in one ear. To see what the little fellow would do I leap
toward him, but he has encountered me once and come to no harm, so he
will not be turned back again. Instead of dodging me, the opossum only
increases his speed, crosses the log, drops out of sight among the
bushes, snorts twice to himself, and is swallowed up forever by the dark
jungle. This log is apparently his regular highway, and he chooses to
risk my apparently fierce onslaught and to run over the opened journal,
bag, hat and gun, rather than change to a new path along another tree
trunk a few feet farther along the trail.
* * * * *
We mortals sometimes have faint hints of coming events, and as I was
leaving the clearing I instinctively kept all my senses on the alert. I
had proceeded only a few yards into the jungle when some of the sweetest
flute-like notes I have ever heard came from a patch of underbrush ahead.
What could it be! I knew that no human being could whistle like that, and
when they were repeated I realized how coarse any flute would sound in
comparison. Nothing in this world but a bird could utter such wonderful
notes. My memory recalled descriptions of the Quadrille-bird[125] and I
knew I was at last listening to it.
Our northern ravines have their Hermit Thrush; the canyons of Mexico are
transfigured by the melody of the Solitaire and here in the deepest,
darkest jungles in the world arises the spirit of the forest in song—the
hymn of the Necklaced Jungle Wren. Dropping everything which would impede
my progress, I crawled slowly and silently over the soft mould until I
was close to the patch of thick brush. Then I waited and prayed, and
the gods of the Naturalist were good, and a little brown form flitted
up to a low branch and from the feathered throat came the incomparable
tones of the fairy flute. The bird sang a phrase (I) of six to ten notes
at a time. This was repeated several times, when an entirely new theme
(II) was begun, which was given only once, then a third (III) and fourth
were tried. Each note was distinct, and of the sweetest, most silvery
character imaginable. In all but two phrases the invariable end consisted
of two notes exactly an octave apart, the last like an ethereal harmonic.
Twice the tones were loud and penetrating, twice they came so faintly
that one’s ear could hardly disentangle them from the silence.
Birds with scale-like songs are far from uncommon: in the north the
Field Sparrow; in Mexico the Canyon Wren; here the Woodhewers, but this
was wholly new, phrase after phrase each differing from the preceding.
How I longed for a phonograph! I scrawled a staff on a bit of paper and
pin-pricked the notes where they seemed to come and reproduce them here.
But what a parody they are, be they whistled or played!
[Music]
[Music]
[Music]
The Necklaced Jungle Wren,[125] or Quadrille-bird as the natives know it,
is a true Wren barely four inches in length, brown above, with a black
collar spangled with white. The face, throat and breast are rich rufous,
with the lower parts pale brown. This is the singer. The song no man may
describe!
A small deer sprang up at my left, and I had walked some distance in
that direction when I suddenly realized that I had missed the trail, and
had been following an imaginary opening through the jungle. On closer
examination this proved to be a deer trail leading to a small spring of
clear water. I will never forget the first thought of terror at being
lost in this endless forest. In one direction a few miles away lay the
bungalow; in the opposite direction one might wander for weeks without
meeting even an Indian. As this thought came I espied a little scarab
beetle resting in the hollow of a leaf, who, as I looked, climbed slowly
to the rim, wriggled his antennæ and took to wing. What a wonderful power
of scent it was which was directing him straight as a magnet, to some
far distant bit of decaying flesh, and with what marvellous vision the
Vulture high overhead spied me and hung for a moment watching me through
a break in the foliage! How dull and inefficient seemed all my organs
of sense in such a crisis as this. For a few moments I devoted myself
to discovering which was north, and from which direction I had come.
The cloudy sky and the sameness of all the vistas through the jungle
completely foiled me, and I had to give it up and ignominiously unravel
my puzzle deliberately and unromantically. I stuck my long-handled
butterfly net in the ground and began to describe circles about
it—widening them gradually, until on the third round I intersected the
trail and went on my way.
The danger of being lost is by no means an imaginary one, and even with
a compass it is sometimes difficult to retrace one’s tracks. The Indians
themselves have to guard against becoming confused when in a new region.
Before I reached the main trail, and met the returning party, I saw a
number of the exquisite White-capped Manakins,[109] clad in shining black
save for their snowy caps. Their flight, unlike their white-breasted
cousins which we met in Venezuela, was noiseless. They were far from
silent however, twanging their little vocal chords in an apology for a
song—a wheezy, grasshopper-like buzz. The females were silent, sombre
little beings—dull olive green above, with a grayish cap and paler below.
After lunch at one o’clock in the afternoon, I started out again and
climbed to the summit of a densely forested hill, southeast of the mine
clearing. The tree-tops were filled with birds and not for a moment was
I entirely out of sight or sound of one or more species. A few yards
from the clearing I followed up an excited cackling and found a pair of
splendid Red-crested Woodpeckers.[88] They had a nest in a tall dead
stub and were trying to dislodge an iguana which was steadily crawling up
a neighboring branch. A moment after I came into sight one of them struck
the lizard with its wings, whereupon the iguana reared up and lunged with
open mouth, the birds then ceasing their attack upon the inoffensive
saurian.
[Illustration: FIG. 131. AGOUTI. (Photo by Sanborn.)]
What splendid birds the Woodpeckers are—strong, active, full of vitality
and enthusiasm over life. These were big fellows, black above,
variegated on shoulders and head with white; thickly barred below and
with a long crest of blazing scarlet. They spent much of their time near
the bungalow, and when they drummed steadily their scarlet head-plumes
seemed a living flaming haze.
Near the summit of the hill a tall Silverballi had been felled and
sawed by hand into boards. This had made a small clearing like the one
I visited yesterday. The trees were filled with many species of birds
attracted by the abundant insect life, some of which I knew and made
notes upon, while most were unknown to me. A group of tiny feathered
beings was busy catching midges near the top of one of the highest
trees, their sharp _cheeps!_ coming faintly down to me. Hopeless of
ever observing them at closer range, I secured one and found it to
be a Buff-tailed Tyrantlet.[107] This waif of the upper air was less
than three and a half inches in length with rather unusual coloring,
the fore part of the body gray, the back, wings, lower breast and tail
rufous. Its claim to the Flycatcher family was proved by the broad
beak and remarkably long bristles. One must have an aëroplane or, more
practically, an observing station in the tree-tops to study these and a
hundred other interesting birds at close range. With a couple of hundred
spikes as a ladder, I intend some day to make one of these mighty trees
give up many of its secrets.
As I was about to seat myself on the ground beyond the clearing, a big
Guan[5] or Maroodie, as we learned to call it here, arose with a loud
cackling cry and a rush of wings. Simultaneously a dark-colored animal
slipped into a hole freshly excavated some twenty feet away.
I lay prone, waiting for some other unexpected manifestation of life,
but all was quiet. Then I prepared to watch for the reappearance of the
unknown burrowing creature, and pressed my face close among the ferns
where I could just see the entrance. A minute passed and directly across
my line of vision, a few inches away from my face, crawled, as rapidly
as it could move, a very large caterpillar almost four inches in length.
Never have I seen a more remarkable looking one. Its ground color was
a peculiar dark wine-red or purple, like the plumage of the Pompadour
Cotinga. From the sides of the back projected brush-like tufts of red and
black hair, while a continuous line of dense golden hair extended out
from the body just above the feet. Over six segments was drawn a pale
yellow pattern of the most delicate lace-like markings, a dainty network
different on each segment. Altogether it was a wondrous creature and
entirely put the burrowing mammal out of mind.
I carried it to our improvised laboratory on the veranda of the bungalow,
but it refused food of all description, and day by day became smaller
in size and duller in color. Instead of dying, it transformed one night
into a large, beautiful chrysalid, yellow-green with a pale bloom over
the surface. It was an inch and a half in length, thick-set in the centre
and tapering rapidly. The joint between the fifth and sixth segments
was hinged and the terminal portion would swing vigorously from side
to side. The spiracle on the sixth segment was cream colored and much
longer than the others, while the bottom of the chrysalid ended in two
short, brownish spines. Seventeen days later in Georgetown, a beautiful
orange-shaded Morpho butterfly emerged. I looked it up in a curious old
volume, “The Insects of Suriname” by Madame Merriam, written many years
ago, and found it was a rare insect, _Morpho metellus_, light orange on
the fore-wings, shading toward the body into pale green and on the hinder
wings to velvety black. From tip to tip it spreads six inches.
On this tramp I heard at least a dozen unusually loud or musical calls
and whistles, new to me, which I could not trace to their authors. In one
case, however, I was successful. Creeping up to a low, thick patch of
brush, a splendid scarlet bird flew out and alighted twenty yards away,
again giving utterance to its characteristic loud whistle. To-day I was
contented with listening and watching, but later I secured the bird as
I could not otherwise identify it. It was what I have christened the
Black-headed Scarlet Grosbeak,[134] differing from the description of
this species in being 8⅜ instead of 7½ inches in length. It was scarlet
below, dull red above, with a scarlet necklace and a jet black head and
throat. A yellowish female showed herself for only a moment. The whistle
was loud and penetrating, but sweet in quality. The first theme had three
distinct phrases which may be represented thus:
[Illustration]
The second consisted of three scales, the first ascending one being more
abrupt than the succeeding ones, thus:
[Illustration]
When the first bird ceased, another took up the whistle as long as I
remained near the place. What splendid birds these would be in an aviary,
striking both in color and notes. The nest, eggs and young, as is the
case with so many South American birds, are unknown.
Goldbirds[115] were calling all through the woods, and when one paid
close attention, considerable variation was apparent in their notes. One
individual uttered the _wheé! wheé! o!_ twice in quick succession with
the two introductory phrases (_vide_ page 189) only before the first
call. This was repeated three times and then the bird reverted to the
usual single utterance. On my way home two agoutis sprang up before me
and I secured one for the general mess.