BRITISH GUIANA (1) I21 
and the job I was doing. From my late simple life on the Settle- 
ment I was pulled up with a jerk as a tall figure immaculately 
attired in white stepped out of a gleaming car and informed me 
that I was invited to lunch with the Governor. This meant getting 
my menagerie into a safe shady place quickly and doing a quick 
change into something more suitable for the occasion. 
The lunch at Government House was one of those amusing con- 
trasts I was able to appreciate to the full, having had a good taste 
of the opposite extreme. 
The trip home took me via Trinidad, where I had cabled for 
a further supply of lettuce for my hoatzins. These birds, which 
had never before been kept alive in captivity, were still perfectly 
fit when we sailed from Georgetown. As no other accommoda- 
tion was available all my livestock was kept on deck, this being 
the usual procedure on the majority of boats. My only worry 
was how the hoatzins would stand the cold when nearing Eng- 
land, as the change in temperature on leaving the tropics can be 
unpleasantly rapid even in the summer months, and most birds 
dislike it. 
The voyage went well until we reached the vicinity of the 
Azores, and then the weather worsened rapidly with a freezing 
cold head-wind blowing. The hoatzins, whose sole diet was leaves, 
were obviously affected more than anything else; I made strenu- 
ous efforts to get them put somewhere below decks. This request 
would, under the circumstances, have met with sympathetic con- 
sideration on most ships, but by an unfortunate coincidence this 
was the captain’s first voyage on a passenger boat, and he was 
determined at all costs to do nothing wrong. He made great to-do 
about safeguarding the health of the passengers, though there are 
always odd places away from passengers’ quarters. The result was 
that three of the hoatzins died of cold when only three days from 
England, the fourth arrived with a bad cold and died the follow- 
ing day, but the remaining one landed in perfect condition. He 
lived in the London Zoo for some months, and would probably 
have lasted longer if he had had the company of his own kind. 
Although this venture had a sad sequel, at least it gave me the 
satisfaction of being able to exhibit for the first time a living 
specimen of one of the world’s most remarkable birds. It showed 
