Notes on JtDiglc and Other IVild Life. 83 



" and personal friends, and which there has been no opportunity to revise cr 

 " correct. Please do not return it, but dispose of it in any way you choose. — 

 " Cora Raymond (Secretary)." We have decided to publish it in extenso 

 as received, as while the whole of it does not refer to birds, yet it is all 

 descriptive of wild-life in all the varied faunas of the tropical jungle, how to 

 leacli, transit details, etc., and will, we opine, prove of practical interest to 

 all serious aviculturists, and will impart some insight as to the natural 

 setting of many of the si)ccics which adorn our aviaries. — Ed. B.N.] 

 Dear Folks, — 



Last year, when E. and I spent the winter on the 

 mainland of South America, I wrote a short and unconnected 

 account of our experiences, for the amusement of a few friends. 

 These random sketches were intended to be a sort of Christmas 

 greeting, and were indeed ready for the typist before the hohday 

 season, but it takes so mucli time to reach one's correspondents 

 from the Tropics that it was ahiiost Easter before the letters 

 were delivered 



I suppose this is the proper place to confess that E. and 

 the writer hope to complete their itinerary, which has so far 

 been something like this — California, Chicago. Montreal, New 

 York, London, Montreal, Halifax, Barbados, and Demerara, 

 during 1921 — by adding" Trinidad. Venezuela, Curacoa, Haiti, 

 New York and Washington. London, Montreal, and Chicago, 

 finally reaching California some time towards the end of 1922. 

 Sounds like a circus route or a Cook's Tour — doesn't it? — btrt 

 it is really much simpler and more commonplace than either ! 



If I had not been asked so frequently my motives for 

 visiting once more the Spanish Main, I would not now bore you 

 with them. (By the way, 1 did not know until I had read, quite 

 recently. Lord F. Hamilton's attractive book. Here, There 

 and Ez'crywliere, that " Main " has nothing to do with a body 

 of water, but is an abbreviation of " Mainland," meaning 

 thereby the former possessions of the Spaniards in South 

 America). 



Ijuprimis, I am desirous some time in the future to 

 complete certain work I have been carrying on about the Eyes 

 and Eyesight of Birds. After all, if we wish to study eyesight 

 in its numerous manifestations (human vision included) or hope 

 to penetrate the mystery of how we see, it is to bird life that we 

 must apply. That I may intelligently continue these studies 



