I50 JUNGLE ISLAND 



The island had the reputation of being a good 

 hunting ground. My black helpers would fre- 

 quently pause and stand listening in rapt atten- 

 tion and then motion for me to bring my gun 

 and follow them to find ''torkevs." I was told 

 that there were two kinds of **torkeys" in the 

 forest, a ''big, big, big red kind" and a "black, 

 black" one. These are not real turkeys, though 

 they do look like them. Their proper name is 

 curassow. Later I found that the red curas- 

 sows are hens. The gobblers, which are black 

 and usually found on the ground, are as large 

 as small turkey gobblers. Both the gobblers 

 and the hens have beautiful curled crests on 

 their heads. 



Usually our ''torkey" -stalking expeditions were 

 failures. The birds were shy and easily fright- 

 ened by the rustling of dry leaves under our 

 feet. Three of the *'big red kind" flew over my 

 clearing one quiet day and stopped near by so 

 that I saw their red feet and their dark brown 

 feathers that turn dusky in the shadows. 



There is a smaller black relative of the curas- 

 sows that is not so shy and is also good to eat. 

 This is the ''black, black kind" of the natives. 



My experience in trying to stalk "torkeys" and 

 attempts to see other animals convinced me that 

 I must have a real trail through the forest. What 

 we had called trails were only blazed paths where 

 almost no clearing had been done. What I 



