232 THE ODYSSEY OF AN ANIMAL COLLECTOR 
edgings. They are extremely temperamental, and while they are 
becoming used to captivity behave more or less like sulky children. 
Sometimes they feign death, and while doing so will occasionally 
open one eye to see if anyone is about. If they think all is clear, 
they get up and fly around in the normal manner, but if someone 
is in view the eye is closed immediately and the “dying” position 
is resumed. They are also very finical about their food, and once 
they have become accustomed to feeding out of a particular type 
of vessel, nothing will induce them to feed from any other. This 
is very curious, for they will get as far as tasting the fluid, but the 
fact that it is not in the familiar pot seems to put them off com- 
pletely and they will die of starvation rather than give in. I was 
thankful that all humming-birds were not such a trial as these 
though, generally speaking, the mountain species are much more 
difficult to establish than those of the low country. Other beautiful 
humming-birds that we added to the collection in this region were 
the White-booted Racket-tail—a very diminutive species—and the 
Hill Angel; we also captured a pair of the very quaint-looking 
Toucan-like Barbets, which are rare and rather local. 
Unfortunately heavy rain continued to fall and we had great 
difficulty in reaching the region where it was known that the 
cocks-of-the-rock lived. In the dry season they can be found in 
numbers in certain spots where the males have dancing-grounds, 
and so normally the trapping of them would have presented no 
great difficulty. But we discovered that they give up their dancing 
displays during the rain and disperse throughout the forest. We 
saw and heard odd specimens, but the drenching vegetation and 
swollen rivers were such a handicap that we had to abandon the 
idea, with regret. After my departure I heard that they all re- 
turned to their old haunts once the dry season had set in. 
One day I was fascinated to see a Torrent Duck feeding in the 
river. This bird is shaped like a cormorant, with a thin body and 
legs set far back. Its powers of swimming in a raging torrent have 
to be seen to be believed; in fact the bird is more like a fish in this 
respect. The one I watched was sitting on a fallen tree trunk, the 
bulk of which was jammed fast in shallow water, but with one 
end jutting out into the fast-flowing current. The bird kept diving 
