Chapter I: Preface

In the following pages we have set down the tale of two searches for a wilderness. These two private expeditions were undertaken for the purpose of learning something about the birds and other wild creatures of countries further south than any we had yet visited. Both trips were successful; for the regions we explored were wilderness wonderlands,—full of beauty, abounding in the romance which ever enhances wild creatures and wild men, and they were part of the great zoölogical “dark continent” which we hope to devote our lives to studying.

On our first search the collecting of live birds was incidental, although we brought back forty specimens of fourteen species.

On the second search, however, we took with us an assistant, Mr. Lee S. Crandall. By his assiduity in trapping and in arousing the interest of native coolie and black boys, he assembled a splendid collection of almost three hundred living birds of fifty-one species. These we brought to the New York Zoölogical Park, where no less than thirty-three species were new to the collection. In addition many small mammals and reptiles were collected.

PART I.

We left New York on February 22d, 1908, on the Royal Mail Steamship “Trent,” and after touching at Jamaica, Colon, Savanilla and La Guayra, we disembarked at Port of Spain, Trinidad, on March 9th. Leaving this port in a Venezuelan sloop we cruised among the caños north of the Orinoco Delta, and explored the country about the Venezuelan Pitch Lake—La Brea.

To Mr. Eugene André of Trinidad, we are deeply indebted for a hundred kindnesses which did much to make our trip a success. We wish also to express gratitude to Mr. Mole, Mr. Anduse and especially to the late Mr. Ellis Grell.