224 THE ODYSSEY OF AN ANIMAL COLLECTOR 
was a frost that night, and in the morning I found all four cling- 
ing to the wire netting, where they had slept, apparently dead. 
They were frozen stiff and were quite lifeless. I threw them onto 
a rubbish heap and left them. An hour or so later, when the warm 
morning sun began to shine on them, I happened to pass and saw 
one moving and showing signs of life, so I put all four in a small 
box-cage where they caught the full force of the sun’s rays, and in 
a short while they were as lively as crickets. I took them back to 
the aviary, opened the cage door and out they flew as though 
nothing had ever happened. 
The Andes in Ecuador consist of two parallel chains of moun- 
tains with wide valleys between, in which the bulk of the popula- 
tion lives. A few miles east of the capital civilization, as such, 
comes to an end. Ecuadorian territory on the eastern side of the 
Andes is little known, except to the aboriginal Indians. 
In an attempt to find a region untampered by man I made the 
journey to Papallacta—an Indian village situated at eleven thou- 
sand five hundred feet in the eastern Andes—leaving my col- 
lection of birds in charge of my niece in Quito. This trip into 
the unknown was an exciting one for me, though I was not 
happy about leaving Delys on her own. To reduce my absence to 
the shortest possible time, I engaged a half-caste Indian blow- 
gunner to accompany me, whose duty it was to get live humming- 
birds. 
It is fascinating to watch one of these fellows at work. The blow- 
gun is six feet or more long and is like the glorified pea-shooter 
of olden days. It is merely the stem of some kind of cane or plant 
with a hollow pithy center. This is split lengthwise and the pith 
removed; the two halves are then replaced, bound round spirally 
with a thin flexible ribbon-like cane over which is plastered some 
wild rubber latex of a kind that is resinous and sets hard like 
pitch. Thus the barrel is sheathed with a solid case preventing it 
from warping and keeping it perfectly straight. The great art of 
using such a weapon is to be able to roll pellets exactly the right 
size, for it follows if these are too big they will jam, and if too 
small will allow a certain amount of air to escape, resulting in a 
loss of force. A special sort of black clay with the texture of 
