Chapter VII: Part 7

In this little arena, floored with sand, dotted with rushes and balconied with boulders, many hundreds of butterflies were gathered. There were five species, all of the genius _Catopsilia_, but only three were easily distinguishable in life, the smaller, lemon yellow _statira_, and the larger, orange _argente_ and _philea_. There was also _eubele_, the migrant, keeping rather to itself.

I took some pictures, then crept closer; more pictures and a nearer approach. Then suddenly all rose, and I felt as if I had shattered a wonderful painting. But the sand was a lodestone and drew them down. I slipped within a yard, squatted, and mentally became one of them. Silently, by dozens and scores, they flew around me, and soon they eclipsed the sand. They were so closely packed that their outstretched legs touched. There were two large patches, and a smaller area outlined by no boundary that I could detect. Yet when these were occupied the last comers alighted on top of the wings of their comrades, who resented neither the disturbance nor the weight. Two layers of butterflies crammed into small areas of sand in the midst of more sand, bounded by walls of empty air--this was a strange thing.

A little later, when I enthusiastically reported it to a professional lepidopterist he brushed it aside. "A common occurrence the world over, Rhopalocera gathered in damp places to drink." I, too, had observed apparently similar phenomena along icy streams in Sikkim, and around muddy buffalo-wallows in steaming Malay jungles. And I can recall many years ago, leaning far out of a New England buggy to watch clouds of little sulphurs flutter up from puddles beneath the creaking wheels.

The very fact that butterflies chose to drink in company is of intense interest, and to be envied as well by us humans who are temporarily denied that privilege. But in the Bay of Butterflies they were not drinking, nor during the several days when I watched them. One of the chosen patches of sand was close to the tide when I first saw them, and damp enough to appease the thirst of any butterfly. The other two were upon sand, parched by hours of direct tropical sun, and here the two layers were massed.

The insects alighted, facing in any direction, but veered at once, heading upbreeze. Along the riverside of markets of tropical cities I have seen fleets of fishing boats crowded close together, their gay sails drying, while great ebony Neptunes brought ashore baskets of angel fish. This came to mind as I watched my flotillas of butterflies.

I leaned forward until my face was hardly a foot from the outliers, and these I learned to know as individuals. One sulphur had lost a bit of hind wing, and three times he flew away and returned to the same spot. Like most cripples, he was unamiable, and resented a close approach, pushing at the trespasser with a foreleg in a most unbutterfly-like way. Although I watched closely, I did not see a single tongue uncoiled for drinking. Only when a dense group became uneasy and pushed one another about were the tongue springs slightly loosened. Even the nervous antennæ were quiet after the insects had settled. They seemed to have achieved a Rhopaloceran Nirvana, content to rest motionless until caught up in the temporary whirlwinds of restlessness which now and then possessed them.

They came from all directions, swirling over the rocks, twisting through nearby brambles, and settling without a moment's hesitation. It was as though they had all been here many times before, a rendezvous which brooked not an instant's delay. From time to time some mass spirit troubled them, and, as one butterfly, the whole company took to wing. Close as they were when resting, they fairly buffeted one another in mid-air. Their wings, striking one another and my camera and face, made a strange little rustling, crisp and crackling whispers of sounds. As if a pile of Northern autumn leaves, fallen to earth, suddenly remembered days of greenness and humming bees, and strove to raise themselves again to the bare branches overhead.

Down came the butterflies again, brushing against my clothes and eyes and hands. All that I captured later were males, and most were fresh and newly emerged, with a scattering of dimmed wings, frayed at edges, who flew more slowly, with less vigor. Finally the lower patch was washed out by the rising tide, but not until the water actually reached them did the insects leave. I could trace with accuracy the exact reach of the last ripple to roll over the flat sand by the contour of the remaining outermost rank of insects.

On and on came the water, and soon I was forced to move, and the hundreds of butterflies in front of me. When the last one had left I went away, returning two hours later. It was then that I witnessed the most significant happening in the Bay of Butterflies--one which shook to the bottom the theory of my lepidopterist friend, together with my thoughtless use of the word normal. Over two feet of restless brown water covered the sand patches and rocked the scouring rushes. A few feet farther up the little bay the remaining sand was still exposed. Here were damp sand, sand dotted with rushes, and sand dry and white in the sun. About a hundred butterflies were in sight, some continually leaving, and others arriving. Individuals still dashed into sight and swooped downward. But not one attempted to alight on the exposed sand. There was fine, dry sand, warm to a butterfly's feet, or wet sand soaked with draughts of good Mazaruni water. But they passed this unheeding, and circled and fluttered in two swarms, as low as they dared, close to the surface of the water, exactly over the two patches of sand which had so drawn and held them or their brethren two hours before. Whatever the ultimate satisfaction may have been, the attraction was something transcending humidity, aridity, or immediate possibility of attainment. It was a definite cosmic point, a geographical focus, which, to my eyes and understanding, was unreasonable, unsuitable, and inexplicable.

As I watched the restless water and the butterflies striving to find a way down through it to the only desired patches of sand in the world, there arose a fine, thin humming, seeping up through the very waves, and I knew the singing catfish were following the tide shoreward. And as I considered my vast ignorance of what it all meant, of how little I could ever convey of the significance of the happenings in the Bay of Butterflies, I felt that it would have been far better for all of my green ink to have trickled down through the grains of sand.

XII

SEQUELS

Tropical midges of sorts live less than a day--sequoias have felt their sap quicken at the warmth of fifteen hundred springs. Somewhere between these extremes, we open our eyes, look about us for a time and close them again. Modern political geography and shifts of government give us Methusalistic feelings--but a glance at rocks or stars sends us shuddering among the other motes which glisten for a moment in the sunlight and then vanish.

We who strive for a little insight into evolution and the meaning of things as they are, forever long for a glimpse of things as they were. Here at my laboratory I wonder what the land was like before the dense mat of vegetation came to cover every rock and grain of sand, or how the rivers looked when first their waters trickled to the sea.

All our stories are of the middles of things,--without beginning or end; we scientists are plunged suddenly upon a cosmos in the full uproar of eons of precedent, unable to look ahead, while to look backward we must look down.

Exactly a year ago I spent two hours in a clearing in the jungle back of Kartabo laboratory, and let my eyes and ears have full swing.[2] Now in August of the succeeding year I came again to this clearing, and found it no more a clearing. Indeed so changed was it, that for weeks I had passed close by without a thought of the jungle meadow of the previous year, and now, what finally turned me aside from my usual trail, was a sound. Twelve months ago I wrote, "From the monotone of under-world sounds a strange little rasping detached itself, a reiterated, subdued scraping or picking. It carried my mind instantly to the throbbing theme of the Niebelungs, onomatopoetic of the little hammers forever busy in their underground work. I circled a small bush at my side, and found that the sound came from one of the branches near the top; so with my glasses I began a systematic search." This was as far as I ever got, for a flock of parrakeets exploded close at hand and blew the lesser sound out of mind. If I had stopped to guess I would probably have considered the author a longicorn beetle or some fiddling orthopter.

[Footnote 2: See page 34.]

Now, a year later, I suddenly stopped twenty yards away, for at the end of the silvery cadence of a woodhewer, I heard the low, measured, toneless rhythm which instantly revived to mind every detail of the clearing. I was headed toward a distant palm frond beneath whose tip was a nest of Rufous Hermits, for I wished to see the two atoms of hummingbirds at the moment when they rolled from their _petit pois_ egg-shells. I gave this up for the day and turned up the hill, where fifty feet away was the stump and bush near which I had sat and watched. Three times I went past the place before I could be certain, and even at the last I identified it only by the relative position of the giant tauroneero tree, in which I had shot many cotingas. The stump was there, a bit lower and more worn at the crevices, leaking sawdust like an overloved doll--but the low shrub had become a tall sapling, the weeds--vervain, boneset, velvet-leaf--all had been topped and killed off by dense-foliaged bushes and shrubs, which a year before had not raised a leaf above the meadow level. The old vistas were gone, the landscape had closed in, the wilderness was shutting down. Nature herself was "letting in the jungle." I felt like Rip Van Winkle, or even more alien, as if the passing of time had been accelerated and my longed-for leap had been accomplished, beyond the usual ken of mankind's earthly lease of senses.

All these astounding changes had come to pass through the heat and moisture of a tropical year, and under deliberate scientific calculation there was nothing unusual in the alteration. I remembered the remarkable growth of one of the laboratory bamboo shoots during the rainy season--twelve and a half feet in sixteen days, but that was a single stem like a blade of grass, whereas here the whole landscape was altered--new birds, new insects, branches, foliage, flowers, where twelve short months past, was open sky above low weeds.

In the hollow root on the beach, my band of crane-flies had danced for a thousand hours, but here was a sound which had apparently never ceased for more than a year--perhaps five thousand hours of daylight. It was a low, penetrating, abruptly reiterated beat, occurring about once every second and a half, and distinctly audible a hundred feet away. The "low bush" from which it proceeded last year, was now a respectable sapling, and the source far out of reach overhead. I discovered a roundish mass among the leaves, and the first stroke of the ax sent the rhythm up to once a second, but did not alter the timbre. A few blows and the small trunk gave way and I fled for my life. But there was no angry buzzing and I came close. After a cessation of ten or fifteen seconds the sound began again, weaker but steady. The foliage was alive with small Azteca ants, but these were tenants of several small nests near by, and at the catastrophe overran everything.

The largest structure was the smooth carton nest of a wasp, a beautiful species, pale yellowish-red with wine-colored wings. Only once did an individual make an attempt to sting and even when my head was within six inches, the wasps rested quietly on the broken combs. By careful watching, I observed that many of the insects jerked the abdomen sharply downward, butting the comb or shell of smooth paper a forceful blow, and producing a very distinct noise. I could not at first see the mass of wasps which were giving forth the major rhythm, as they were hidden deep in the nest, but the fifty-odd wasps in sight kept perfect time, or occasionally an individual skipped one or two beats, coming in regularly on every alternate or every third beat. Where they were two or three deep, the uppermost wasps struck the insects below them with their abdomens in perfect rhythm with the nest beat. For half an hour the sound continued, then died down and was not heard again. The wasps dispersed during the night and the nest was deserted.

It reminded me of the telegraphing ants which I have often heard in Borneo, a remarkable sweeping roll, caused by the host of insects striking the leaves with their heads, and produced only when they are disturbed. It appeared to be of the nature of a warning signal, giving me opportunity to back away from the stinging legions which filled the thicket against which I pushed.

The rhythm of these wasps was very different. They were peaceable, not even resenting the devastation of their home, but always and always must the inexplicable beat, beat, beat, be kept up, serving some purpose quite hidden from me. During succeeding months I found two more nests, with similar fetish of sound vibrations, which led to their discovery. From one small nest, which fairly shook with the strength of their beats, I extracted a single wasp and placed him in a glass-topped, metal box. For three minutes he kept up the rhythmic beat. Then I began a more rapid tattoo on the bottom of the box, and the changed tempo confused him, so that he stopped at once, and would not tap again.

A few little Mazaruni daisies survived here and there, blossoming bravely, trying to believe that the shade was lessening, and not daily becoming more dense. But their leaves were losing heart, and paling in the scant light. Another six months and dead leaves and moss would have obliterated them, and the zone of brilliant flowers and gorgeous butterflies and birds would shift many feet into the air, with the tops of the trees as a new level.

As long as I remained by my stump my visitors were of the jungle. A yellow-bellied trogon came quite close, and sat as trogons do, very straight and stiff like a poorly mounted bird, watching passing flycatchers and me and the glimpses of sky. At first he rolled his little cuckoo-like notes, and his brown mate swooped up, saw me, shifted a few feet farther off and perched full of curiosity, craning her neck and looking first with one eye, then the other. Now the male began a content song. With all possible variations of his few and simple tones, on a low and very sweet timbre, he belied his unoscine perch in the tree of bird life, and sang to himself. Now and then he was drowned out by the shrilling of cicadas, but it was a delightful serenade, and he seemed to enjoy it as much as I did. A few days before, I had made a careful study of the syrinx of this bird, whom we may call rather euphoniously _Trogonurus curucui_, and had been struck by the simplicity both of muscles and bones. Now, having summoned his mate in regular accents, there followed this unexpected whisper song. It recalled similar melodies sung by pheasants and Himalayan partridges, usually after they had gone to roost.

Once the female swooped after an insect, and in the midst of one of the sweetest passages of the male trogon, a green grasshopper shifted his position. He was only two inches away from the singer, and all this time had been hidden by his chlorophyll-hued veil. And now the trogon fairly fell off the branch, seizing the insect almost before the tone died away. Swallowing it with considerable difficulty, the harmony was taken up again, a bit throaty for a few notes. Then the pair talked together in the usual trogon fashion, and the sudden shadow of a passing vulture, drew forth discordant cat calls, as both birds swooped from sight to avoid the fancied hawk.

A few minutes later the vocal seal of the jungle was uttered by a quadrille bird. When the notes of this wren are heard, I can never imagine open, blazing sunshine, or unobstructed blue sky. Like the call of the wood pewee, the wren's radiates coolness and shadowy quiet. No matter how tropic or breathless the jungle, when the flute-like notes arise they bring a feeling of freshness, they arouse a mental breeze, which cools one's thoughts, and, although there may be no water for miles, yet we can fairly hear the drip of cool drops falling from thick moss to pools below. First an octave of two notes of purest silver, then a varying strain of eight or ten notes, so sweet and powerful, so individual and meaningful that it might stand for some wonderful motif in a great opera. I shut my eyes, and I was deaf to all other sounds while the wren sang. And as it dwelt on the last note of its phrase, a cicada took it up on the exact tone, and blended the two final notes into a slow vibration, beginning gently and rising with the crescendo of which only an insect, and especially a cicada, is master. Here was the eternal, hypnotic tom-tom rhythm of the East, grafted upon supreme Western opera. For a time my changed clearing became merely a sounding box for the most thrilling of jungle songs. I called the wren as well as I could, and he came nearer and nearer. The music rang out only a few yards away. Then he became suspicious, and after that each phrase was prefaced by typical wren scolding. He could not help but voice his emotions, and the harsh notes told plainly what he thought of my poor imitation. Then another feeling would dominate, and out of the maelstrom of harshness, of tumbled, volcanic vocalization would rise the pure silver stream of single notes.

The wren slipped away through the masses of fragrant Davilla blossoms, but his songs remained and are with me to this moment. And now I leaned back, lost my balance, and grasping the old stump for support, loosened a big piece of soft, mealy wood. In the hollow beneath, I saw a rainbow in the heart of the dead tree.

This rainbow was caused by a bug, and when we stop to think of it, this shows how little there is in a name. For when we say bug, or for that matter bogy or bugbear, we are garbling the sound which our very, very forefathers uttered when they saw a specter or hobgoblin. They said it _bugge_ or even _bwg_, but then they were more afraid of specters in those days than we, who imprison will-o'-the-wisps in Very lights, and rub fox-fire on our watch faces. At any rate here was a bug who seemed to ill-deserve his name, although if the Niblelungs could fashion the Rheingold, why could not a bug conceive a rainbow?

Whenever a human, and especially a house-human thinks of bugs, she thinks unpleasantly and in superlatives. And it chances that evolution, or natural selection, or life's mechanism, or fate or a creator, has wrought them into form and function also in superlatives. Cicadas are supreme in longevity and noise. One of our northern species sucks in silent darkness for seventeen years, and then, for a single summer, breaks all American long-distance records for insect voices. To another group, known as Fulgorids, gigantic heads and streamers of wax have been allotted. Those possessing the former rejoice in the name of Lantern Flies, but they are at present unfaithful vestal bugs, though it is extremely doubtful if their wicks were ever trimmed or lighted. To see a big wax bug flying with trailing ribbons slowly from tree to tree in the jungle is to recall the streaming trains of a flock of peacocks on the wing.

The membracids must of all deserve the name of "bugges" for no elf or hobgoblin was ever more bizarre. Their legs and heads and bodies are small and aphid-like, but aloft there spring minarets and handles and towers and thorns and groups of hairy balls, out of all reason and sense. Only Stegosaurus and Triceratops bear comparison. Another group of five-sided bugs are the skunks and civet-cats among insects, guarding themselves from danger by an aura of obnoxious scent.

Not the least strange of this assemblage is the author of our rainbow in the stump. My awkwardness had broken into a hollow which opened to the light on the other side of the rotten bole. A vine had tendriled its way into the crevice where the little weaver of rainbows had found board and lodging. We may call him toad-hopper or spittle-bug, or as Fabre says, "_Contentons-nous de Cicadelle, qui respecte le tympan._" Like all of its kindred, the Bubble Bug finds Nirvana in a sappy green stem. It has neither strong flight, nor sticky wax, thorny armature nor gas barrage, so it proceeds to fashion an armor of bubbles, a cuirass of liquid film. This, in brief, was the rainbow which caught my eye when I broke open the stump. Up to that moment no rainbow had existed, only a little light sifting through from the vine-clad side. But now a ray of sun shattered itself on the pile of bubbles, and sprayed itself out into a curved glory.

Bubble Bugs blow their froth only when immature, and their bodies are a distillery or home-brew of sorts. No matter what the color, or viscosity or chemical properties of sap, regardless of whether it flows in liana, shrub, or vine, yet the Bug's artesian product is clear, tasteless and wholly without the possibility of being blown into bubbles. When a large drop has collected, the tip of the abdomen encloses a retort of air, inserts this in the drop and forces it out. In some way an imponderable amount of oil or dissolved wax is extruded and mixed with the drop, an invisible shellac which toughens the bubble and gives it an astounding glutinous endurance. As long as the abdominal air-pump can be extended into the atmosphere, so long does the pile of bubbles grow until the insect is deep buried, and to penetrate this is as unpleasant an achievement for small marauders as to force a cobweb entanglement. I have draped a big pile of bubbles around the beak of an insect-eating bird, and watched it shake its head and wipe its beak in evident disgust at the clinging oily films. In the north we have the bits of fine white foam which we characteristically call frog-spittle, but these tropic relatives have bigger bellows and their covering is like the interfering mass of films which emerges from the soap-bubble bowl when a pipe is thrust beneath the surface and that delicious gurgling sound produced.

The most marvelous part of the whole thing is that the undistilled well which the Bubble Bug taps would often overwhelm it in an instant, either by the burning acidity of its composition, or the rubber coating of death into which it hardens in the air. Yet with this current of lava or vitriol, our Bug does three wonderful things, it distills sweet water for its present protective cell of bubbles, it draws purest nourishment for continual energy to run its bellows and pump, and simultaneously it fills its blood and tissues with a pungent flavor, which in the future will be a safeguard against the attacks of birds and lizards. Little by little its wings swell to full spread and strength, muscles are fashioned in its hind legs, which in time will shoot it through great distances of space, and pigment of the most brilliant yellow and black forms on its wing covers. When at last it shuts down its little still and creeps forth through the filmy veil, it is immature no longer, but a brilliant frog-hopper, sitting on the most conspicuous leaves, trusting by pigmental warning to advertise its inedibility, and watchful for a mate, so that the future may hold no dearth of Bubble Bugs.

On my first tramp each season in the tropical jungle, I see the legionary army ants hastening on their way to battle, and the leaf-cutters plodding along, with chlorophyll hods over their shoulders, exactly as they did last year, and the year preceding, and probably a hundred thousand years before that. The Colony Egos of army and leaf-cutters may quite reasonably be classified according to Kingdom. The former, with carnivorous, voracious, nervous, vitally active members, seems an intangible, animal-like organism; while the stolid, vegetarian, unemotional, weather-swung Attas, resemble the flowing sap of the food on which they subsist--vegetable.

Yet, whatever the simile, the net of unconscious precedent is too closely drawn, the mesh of instinct is too fine to hope for any initiative. This was manifested by the most significant and spectacular occurrence I have ever observed in the world of insects. One year and a half ago I studied and reported upon, a nest of Ecitons or army ants.[3] Now, eighteen months later, apparently the same army appeared and made a similar nest of their own bodies, in the identical spot near the door of the outhouse, where I had found them before. Again we had to break up the temporary colony, and killed about three-quarters of the colony with various deadly chemicals.

[Footnote 3: See page 58.]

In spite of all the tremendous slaughter, the Ecitons, in late afternoon, raided a small colony of Wasps-of-the-Painted-Nest. These little chaps construct a round, sub-leaf carton-home, as large as a golf ball, which carries out all the requirements of counter shading and of ruptive markings. The flattened, shadowed under surface was white, and most of the sloping walls dark brown, down which extended eight white lines, following the veins of the leaf overhead. The side close to the stem of the leaf, and consequently always in deep shadow, was pure white. The eaves catching high lights were black. All this marvelous merging with leaf tones went for naught when once an advance Eciton scout located the nest.

As the deadly mob approached, the wasplets themselves seemed to realize the futility of offering battle, and the entire colony of forty-four gathered in a forlorn group on a neighboring leaf, while their little castle was rifled--larvæ and pupæ torn from their cells and rushed down the stems to the chaos which was raging in Eciton's own home. The wasps could guard against optical discovery, but the blind Ecitons had senses which transcended vision, if not even scent.

Late that night, our lanterns showed the remnants of the Eciton army wandering aimlessly about, making near approach impossible, but apparently lacking any definite concerted action.

At six o'clock the following morning I started out for a swim, when at the foot of the laboratory steps I saw a swiftly-moving, broad line of army ants on safari, passing through the compound to the beach. I traced them back under the servants' quarters, through two clumps of bamboos to the outhouse. Later I followed along the column down to the river sand, through a dense mass of underbrush, through a hollow log, up the bank, back through light jungle--to the outhouse again, and on a large fallen log, a few feet beyond the spot where their nest had been, the ends of the circle _actually came together_! It was the most astonishing thing, and I had to verify it again and again before I could believe the evidence of my eyes. It was a strong column, six lines wide in many places, and the ants fully believed that they were on their way to a new home, for most were carrying eggs or larvæ, although many had food, including the larvæ of the Painted Nest Wasplets. For an hour at noon during heavy rain, the column weakened and almost disappeared, but when the sun returned, the lines rejoined, and the revolution of the vicious circle continued.

There were several places which made excellent points of observation, and here we watched and marveled. Careful measurement of the great circle showed a circumference of twelve hundred feet. We timed the laden Ecitons and found that they averaged two to two and three-quarter inches a second. So a given individual would complete the round in about two hours and a half. Many guests were plodding along with the ants, mostly staphylinids of which we secured five species, a brown histerid beetle, a tiny chalcid, and several Phorid flies, one of which was winged.

The fat Histerid beetle was most amusing, getting out of breath every few feet, and abruptly stopping to rest, turning around in its tracks, standing almost on its head, and allowing the swarm of ants to run up over it and jump off. Then on it would go again, keeping up the terrific speed of two and a half inches a second for another yard. Its color was identical with the Ecitons' armor, and when it folded up, nothing could harm it. Once a worker stopped and antennæd it suspiciously, but aside from this, it was accepted as one of the line of marchers. Along the same route came the tiny Phorid flies, wingless but swift as shadows, rushing from side to side, over ants, leaves, débris, impatient only at the slowness of the army.

All the afternoon the insane circle revolved; at midnight the hosts were still moving, the second morning many had weakened and dropped their burdens, and the general pace had very appreciably slackened. But still the blind grip of instinct held them. On, on, on they must go! Always before in their nomadic life there had been a goal--a sanctuary of hollow tree, snug heart of bamboos--surely this terrible grind must end somehow. In this crisis, even the Spirit of the Army was helpless. Along the normal paths of Eciton life he could inspire endless enthusiasm, illimitable energy, but here his material units were bound upon the wheel of their perfection of instinct. Through sun and cloud, day and night, hour after hour there was found no Eciton with individual initiative enough to turn aside an ant's breadth from the circle which he had traversed perhaps fifteen times: the masters of the jungle had become their own mental prey.

Fewer and fewer now came along the well worn path; burdens littered the line of march, like the arms and accoutrements thrown down by a retreating army. At last a scanty single line struggled past--tired, hopeless, bewildered, idiotic and thoughtless to the last. Then some half dead Eciton straggled from the circle along the beach, and threw the line behind him into confusion. The desperation of total exhaustion had accomplished what necessity and opportunity and normal life could not. Several others followed his scent instead of that leading back toward the outhouse, and as an amoeba gradually flows into one of its own pseudopodia, so the forlorn hope of the great Eciton army passed slowly down the beach and on into the jungle. Would they die singly and in bewildered groups, or would the remnant draw together, and again guided by the super-mind of its Mentor lay the foundation of another army, and again come to nest in my outhouse?

Thus was the ending still unfinished, the finale buried in the future--and in this we find the fascination of Nature and of Science. Who can be bored for a moment in the short existence vouchsafed us here; with dramatic beginnings barely hidden in the dust, with the excitement of every moment of the present, and with all of cosmic possibility lying just concealed in the future, whether of Betelgeuze, of Amoeba or--of ourselves? _Vogue la galère!_

APPENDIX OF SCIENTIFIC NAMES

Page Line

4 26 Moriche Oriole; _Icterus chrysocephalus_ (Linné)

8 10 Toad; _Bufo guttatus Schneid_.

18 3 Bat; _Furipterus horrens_ (F. Cuv.)

4 Large Bats; _Vampyrus spectrum_ (Linné)

6 Vampire Bats; _Desmodus rotundus_ (Geoff.)

22 5 Giant Catfish, Boom-boom; _Doras granulosus_ Valen.

23 5 Kiskadee; _Pitangus s. sulphuratus_ (Linné)

25 26 Parrakeets; _Touit batavica_ (Bodd.)

26 Great Black Orioles; _Ostinops d. decumanus_ (Pall.)

26 5 House Wrens; _Troglodytes musculus clarus_ Berl. and Hart

29 5 Coati-mundi; _Nasua n. nasua_ (Linné)

32 2 Frog; _Phyllomedusa_ sp.

34 18 Mazaruni Daisies; _Sipanea pratensis_ Aubl.

20 Button Weed; _Spermacoce_ sp.

36 23 Melancholy Tyrant; _Tyrannus melancholicus satrapa_
(Cab. and Hein.)

37 2 Monarch; _Anosia plexippus_ (Linné)

38 7 Red-breasted Blue Chatterer; _Cotinga cotinga_ Linné

18 Yellow Papilio; _Papilio thoas_ Linné

49 26 Parrakeets; _Touit batavica_ (Bodd.)

52 3 Purple-throated Cotinga; _Cotinga cayana_ (Linné)

53 15 Dark-breasted Mourner; _Lipaugus simplex_ Licht.

54 26 Toucans; _Ramphastus vitellinus_ Licht.

59 6 White-fronted Ant-bird; _Pithys albifrons_ (Linné)

60 16 Army Ants; _Eciton burchelli_ Westwood

97 10 Great Green Kingfisher; _Chloroceryle amazona_ (Lath.)

11 Tiny Emerald Kingfisher; _Chloroceryle americana_ (Gmel.)

103 25 Gecko; _Thecadactylus rapicaudus_ (Houtt.)

109 8 Howling Monkeys; _Alouatta seniculus macconnelli_ Elliot

113 7 Bower Bird; _Ptilonorhynchus violaceus_ (Vieill.)

116 24 Cassava; _Janipha manihot_ Kth.

126 20 Frog, Gawain; _Phyllomedusa_ sp.

132 17 Marine Toad; _Bufo marinus_ (Linné)

133 8 Scarlet-thighed Leaf-walker; _Phyllobates inguinalis_.

149 2 Attas, Leaf-cutting Ants; _Atta cephalotes_ (Fab.)

151 12 Fruit Bats; _Vampyrus spectrum_ (Linné)

152 11 King Vulture; _Gypagus papa_ (Linné)

11 Harpy Eagle; _Harpia harpyja_ (Linné)

163 3 Ani; _Crotophaga ani_ Linné

7 Marine Toad; _Bufo marinus_ (Linné)

164 19 White-faced Opossum; _Metachirus o. opossum_ (Linné)

173 1 Attas, Leaf-cutting Ants; _Atta cephalotes_ (Fab.)

5 Hummingbird; _Phoethornis r. ruber_ (Linné)

174 7 Tamandua; _Tamandua t. tetradactyla_ (Linné)

175 1 Trogon; _Trogon s. strigilatus_ (Linné)

9 Tarantula Hawks; _Pepsis_ sp.

181 17 Cicada larvæ; _Quesada gigas_ Oliv.

182 5 Roaches; _Attaphila_ sp.

231 26 Manatee; _Trichechus manatus_ Linné

232 24 Crocodile; _Caiman sclerops_ (Schneid.)

233 6 Jacana; _Jacana j. jacana_ (Linné)

8 Gallinule; _Ionornis martinicus_ (Linné)

9 Green Herons; _Butorides striata_ Linné

10 Egrets; _Leucophoyx t. thula_ (Molina)

233 17 Kiskadees; _Pitangus sulphuratus_ (Linné)

19 Black Witch; _Crotophaga ani_ (Linné)

19 House Wren; _Troglodytes musculus clarus_ Berl. and Hart

22 Manatee; _Trichechus manatus_ (Linné)

242 1 Jacana; _Jacana j. jacana_ (Linné)

3 Gallinule; _Ionornis martinicus_ (Linné)

243 15 Mongoose; _Mungos mungo_ (Gmel.)

246 11 Little Egret; _Leucophoyx t. thula_ (Molina)

14 Tri-colored Heron; _Hydranassa tricolor_ (P. L. S. Mull.)

15 Little Blue Heron; _Florida c. caerulea_ (Linné)

249 14 White Egret; _Casmerodius egretta_ (Gmel.)

250 10 Night Heron; _Nyctanassa violacea cayennensis_ (Linné)

254 1 Giant Catfish, Boom-boom; _Doras granulosus_ Valen.

256 6 Long-armed Beetle; _Acrocinus longimanus_ (Linné)

276 10 Rufus Hummingbird; _Phoethornis r. ruber_ (Linné)

278 16 Tapping Wasp; _Synoeca irina_ Spinola

280 10 Mazaruni Daisy; _Sipanea pratensis_ Aubl.

21 Trogons; _Trogonurus c. curucui_ (Linné)

282 10 Quadrille Bird; _Leucolepis musica musica_ (Bodd.)

284 3 Bubble Bugs; _Cercopis ruber_

289 16 Army Ants; _Eciton burchelli_ Westwood

INDEX

A

_Acrocinus longimanus_, 255-258

Allamander, 121

_Alouatta seniculus macconnelli_, 109

Ani, 163, 233

_Anosia plexippus_, 37

Antbirds, white-fronted, 59, 227

Antlions, 27, 28

Ants, Army, 58, 60, 154, 282, 289;
attack on wasps, 290;
circular marching of, 291-294;
cleaning of, 79-81;
cleaning of ground, 77;
crippled, 70, 71, 81, 82;
enemies, 72;
foraging lines, 64;
guests, 88, 292;
labor, division of, 67;
larvæ, 87;
nest, 59-61, 74, 83, 289;
nest entrance, 74;
observing, methods of, 63;
odor, 62, 64;
parasites, 292;
prey of, 67;
rain, reaction to, 65, 66;
refuse heaps, 77, 78;
scavengers of nest piles, 78;
speed of, 68, 69, 292;
spinning, 84-86;
vitality, 69

Ants, _Azteca_, 278

Ants, Borneo telegraph, 279

Ants, Leaf-cutting, 7, 152, 173, 289;
at home, 172, 194;
attack, method of guarding against, 177;
attack, method of, 177-179;
battle of giant soldiers, 168-171;
castes, 166;
enemies, 162-163;
flight of kings and queens, 185-188;
fungus, 180, 181;
gardens, fungus, 179-181, 189;
instinct, 190-192;
leaf-chewing in nest, 180;
leaves, carrying, 158-162;
leaves, method of cutting, 158;
name, origin of, 156;
nest, 172;
nest, foundation of, 152, 153, 189, 190;
parasites, external, 176;
paths, 163-165;
queen, 152, 153;
queens, young, in nest, 185;
raids on garden, 154-155;
scavengers of nest, 176;
speed of, 165-166;
soldier, description of, 177-178;
trails, 163-165;
visitors at nest, 174-176;
worker, description of, 156, 157

_Attaphila_, 182-185

Attas. See Ants, Leaf-cutting.

_Atta cephalotes_, 155, 173

B

Bamboos, 9, 13, 23-25

Bats, 17-19

Bats, fruit, 151

Bats, vampire, 4, 18-21, 111, 208

Beach, Jungle, 90-111

Beena, 118

Bees, 35-37, 175

Beetle, 23

Beetle, Histerid, 292

Beetle, long-armed, 256-258

Beetle, rove, 72-73

Beetle, Staphylinid, 292

Beetle, water, in roots, 103

Boom-boom, 22, 252-255

Botanical Gardens, 122

Bower Bird, Purple, 113

Bougainvillia, 121

Boviander, flowers of, 120

_Bufo guttatus_, 8

_Bufo marinus_, 132, 163

Bugs, bubble, 284-288

Bugs, doodle, 28

_Butorides striata_, 233

Butterfly, 37, 125

Butterfly, beryl and jasper, 42

Butterfly, migrating, 259-263

Butterfly, Monarch, 37

Butterfly, Morpho, 51

Butterfly, Social gathering of, 268-273

Butterfly, Yellow papilio, 38

Button weed, 34

C

_Caiman sclerops_, 232

Caladium, 118

Casareep, 117

Cashew trees, 4

_Casmerodius egretta_, 249

Cassava, 116

Cassia, 44

Catfish, Giant. See Boom-boom, 22, 253, 254, 273

_Catopsilia_, species of, 268

_Cercopis ruber_, 284

_Cereus_, night blooming, 218

Chanties, 6

Chatterer, Red-breasted Blue, 38

_Chloroceryle amazona_, 97

Chloroceryle americana, 97

Cicada, 36, 37

Cicada, song of, 283

Cicada, larvæ. See _Quesada gigas_.

Clearing, Jungle, 34-57, 275

Clearing, after interval of year, 276

Coati-mundi, 29

Color, 53, 54

Convicts, 5, 7

Convicts, singing hymns, 109

_Cotinga cayana_, 52, 53

_Cotinga cotinga_, 38

Cotinga, Purple-throated, 52, 53

Cotton, Indian, 117

Cotton, Sea Island, 117

Crabs, in roots, 103

Crocodile, 232

_Crotophaga ani_, 163, 233

Cuyuni River, 9

D

Daisies, Mazaruni, 34, 280

Devilla blossoms, 283

Doodle-bugs, 28

_Doras granulosus_, 22, 254

E

Eagle, Harpy, 152

Eciton. See Army Ants

_Eciton burchelli_, 60, 289

Eggs, Butterfly, 41-43

Egrets, 233, 246, 249

_Ereops_, 264, 265

F

Fer-de-lance, 206

Flamboyant, 122

Flies, Chalcid, 292

Flies, Crane, in roots, 104-106

Flies, Phorid, 292

Flies, as scavengers, 78

_Florida c. caerulea_, 246

Flowers of boviander, 120

Flycatcher, Kiskadee, 23, 233

Flycatcher, Melancholy Tyrant, 36

Frangipani, 122

Frog, Scarlet-thighed Leaf-walker, 133

Frog, Tree, 32, 132

_Furipterus horrens_, 17, 18

G

Gallinule, 233, 242

Galis, 45-47

Garden, Akawai Indian, 115-119

Garden, Boviander, 120

Garden, Coolie and Negro, 120

Garden, Georgetown Botanical, 122, 230

Garden, Tropic, 230-251

Gawain, 31-33, 126

Gecko, 103, 104

Ghost, Kartabo, 25

God-birds, 26

Guests, Army Ant, 72

Guinevere, 123-148

_Gypagus papa_, 152

H

Hammocks, 195
accident in, 204;
capturing bats from, 218-220;
Carib, 197, 198;
environment and dangers, 200, 201;
hummingbirds on, 223, 224;
slinging of, 198, 199, 203, 209, 210;
sounds and scents, 213-215;
trapping from, 205, 206;
watching army ants from, 225, 228;
weaver-birds nesting on, 224

_Harpia harpyja_, 152

Herons, green, 233

Herons, little blue, 246

Herons, night, 250

Herons, rookery, 244-251

Herons, tricolored, 246

Hope, 16

Hummingbirds, 97, 174, 223, 276

Hyacinth, water, 121

_Hydranassa tricolor_, 246

I

_Icterus chrysocephalus_, 4

_Ionornis martinicus_, 233, 242

J

Jacana, 233, 242

_Jacana j. jacana_, 233, 242

_Janipha manihot_, 116

K

Kalacoon, 1

Kartabo, 1

Kartabo, history, 10-12

Kartabo, inmates, 21

Kartabo, morning at, 23

Kib, 29

Kibihée, 29

Kingfisher, Great Green, 97

Kingfisher, Tiny Emerald, 97

Kiskadee, 23, 233, 243

Kunami, 117

Kyk-over-al, 11, 12

L

_Leucolepis m. musica_, 282

_Leucophoyx t. thula_, 233, 246

Lilies, water, 121

_Lipaugus simplex_, 58

Lotus, 121

M

Manatee, 231-236

Martins, 4

"Mazacuni" River, 107

Mazaruni River, 9

_Metachirus o. opossum_, 164

Monarch Butterfly, 37

Mongoose, 248

Monkeys, 25

Monkeys, Howling, 109

Mosquitoes, 202, 211

Mourner, Dark-breasted, 53

_Mungos mungo_, 243

N

_Nasua n. nasua_, 29

Niebelungs, 49

O

Opossum, 164

Orchid, Toko-nook, 119

Oriole, Great Black, 25

Oriole, Moriche, 4

_Ostinops d. decumanus_, 25

P

Paddlers, 5

Palm, Cocoanut, 121

_Papilio thoas_, 38

Parasite, egg, 43, 44

Parrakeets, 25, 49-51

_Pepsis_, sp., 175

Pets, 28-33

_Phoethornis r. ruber_, 174, 276

_Phyllomedusa_, 32, 126

_Phyllomedusa bicolor_, 145

_Phyllobates inguinalis_, 133

_Pitangus s. sulphuratus_, 23, 233, 243

_Pithys albifrons_, 59

Piwari, 117

Pool, Jungle Rain, 126-132

_Ptilonorhynchus violaceus_, 113

Q

Quadrille Bird, 282, 283

_Quesada gigas_, 181

R

_Ramphastus vitellinus_, 54, 55

Roach, 182

Rocks, tidal, 265, 266

Roots, 98-106, 236

_Rozites gongylophora_, 181

Rushes, 264

S

Scorpions, 181

Sedges, Scirpus, 264, 265

Servants, negro, 14, 15

_Sipanea pratensis_, 34, 280

Snake, tree, in hammock, 201

_Spermacoce_ sp., 34

Springtails, in army ants' nest, 88

Striders, water, 129, 130

Sunrise, 107, 108

Swimming at night, 108-111

_Synoeca irina_, 278-280

T

Tadpoles, 127, 130-148

Tadpoles, colors of, 146, 147

Tadpoles, red-fins, 132, 133, 136, 139, 141, 144

Tadpoles, short-tailed blacks, 132, 138

Tamandua, 174

_Tamandua t. tetradactyla_, 174

Tanager, Blue, 111

Tarantula, 23

Tarantula Hawks, 175

Termites, 154, 162

_Thecadactylus rapicauda_, 103

_Thraupis episcopus_, 111

Tidal, area, ecology of, 266-268

Toad, 7, 8

Toad, Marine, 132, 163

Toko-nook, Orchid, 119

Toucans, 25, 54, 55, 56

_Touit batavica_, 25, 49

Tree, Fallen, 95

Tree, Prostrate, reactions of, 96, 97

Treetop, Fauna of, 95

_Trichechus manatus_, 231, 233

_Troglodytes musculus clarus_, 26, 233

Trogon, 175, 280-282

_Trogan s. strigilatus_, 175

_Trogonurus c. curucui_, 280

Tyrant, Melancholy, 36

_Tyrannus melancholicus satrapa_, 36

V

_Vampyrus spectrum_, 18

Vervain, 35

_Victoria regia_, 231, 237, 240, 241

Vulture, King, 152

W

Wasps, Ebony, 175

Wasps, Painted Nest, 289-291

Wasps, Tapping, 278-280

Wind, Voice of, 21

Witch, Black, 233

Wrens, House, 26, 27, 233

* * * * *