STRANGE BIRDS 



I believe more Americans are interested in 

 birds than in any other wild creatures. On the 

 boat that took us down from New Orleans to 

 Panama, people asked me where they could find 

 a guide to tropical birds, hke the little handbooks 

 we tuck away in our pockets when we go out to 

 look for birds here. I was sorry to have to tell 

 them that there were no convenient little books 

 with colored pictures to take out birding in the 

 jungle. I should have liked such a guide myself. 



Some of the men I knew at Ancon had studied 

 birds, but they always wanted to see a specimen 

 before they were sure of its name. This meant 

 that I should usually have to kill a jungle bird to 

 learn its name, and it is no fun for me to kill a 

 bird. I shot only two birds while I was on 

 Barro Colorado. One was a motmot, which trims 

 his tail feathers in an odd way, and the other was 

 a tiny black-and-red man akin, over which my 

 little daughter grieved so sincerely that I 

 regretted my curiosity about it. 



The negroes who were with me on the island 

 were not much help with the birds. They always 

 had names for any that they saw, but I soon 

 found out that the same name might be given to 

 entirely different birds, or that one bird might 



J37 



