198 Naturalist at Large 



saved up $250 before the war could go and live in the 

 midst of the jungle, with monkeys, parrots and toucans, 

 trogons, motmots, and innumerable other denizens of the 

 lowland tropical rain forest easily observed on every hand. 



Strictly speaking, the Canal Zone of Panama is not a 

 possession of the United States. It is, however, a per- 

 petual leasehold, and differs from all other American in- 

 terests in the tropics in that it is on the mainland. There 

 are two bits of mainland tropical rain forest in the posses- 

 sion of the United States: one is Barro Colorado Island and 

 the other is the forest reserve which I persuaded Governor 

 Harry Burgess to set aside along that stretch of the road 

 from Summit to Madden Dam which is within the Canal 

 Zone. The rest has been cut down to provide room for 

 cultivation. The climate at Summit is somewhat drier than 

 it is on the island, and the two spots of forest are quite 

 different, botanically and faunally. 



Until a year ago the Laboratory was supported by table 

 fees, small sums paid by ten or a dozen institutions to en- 

 able officers and students serving them to stay at the 

 Laboratory at special rates. The Governor of the Panama 

 Canal allowed us railroad passes, the right to purchase at 

 the commissaries, and hospital privileges. But a year or 

 more ago the island was taken over by the Government 

 and renamed the Canal Zone Biological Area. The Institute 

 is now an independent entity like the National Academy 

 of Sciences and the Smithsonian Institution. 



We are no longer tenants at will who could be ousted 

 by an unsympathetic governor, and we have a permissive 

 appropriation of $10,000 a year which Congress quite 

 characteristically fails to appropriate. Now, of course, the 



