234 THE ODYSSEY OF AN ANIMAL COLLECTOR 
were any casualties, I finally induced them to let us have a motor 
rail-trolley to chase the goods train. The latter had had about five 
hours’ start by the time we got away, but the driver went all out, 
taking dangerous curves at great speed, and we overtook the 
train at II A.M. 
When we boarded it we expected to see all the humming-birds 
dead, but the van, having had the doors locked, was fairly dark 
inside, which had the effect of keeping the humming-birds less 
active. However, the whole lot had gone torpid, which they do 
very easily when weak, and had to be revived by alternate warm- 
ing and pushing their opened beaks into the sweetened mixture, 
then tilting their heads back so that a drop or two of liquid would 
run down their necks. The warming process is best done by open- 
ing one’s shirt front and dropping the bodies inside so that they 
remain next to the skin above the belt. After some minutes one 
feels a movement and then some buzzing as a revived specimen 
tries to fly around inside the shirt. He is then removed, fed and 
replaced, and when his flight is strong and prolonged it is safe to 
put him back in his cage after a final feed, where he will now be 
able to look after himself. 
After Delys and I had worked furiously for an hour, we had 
revived practically the whole lot. By this time, of course, we were 
chugging along in the slow-going goods train, and instead of 
reaching Guayaquil in the daylight by the mail train, we found 
ourselves abandoned in the goods depot at midnight with no ferry 
to transport us and our birds across to an hotel. 
We were two tired, bedraggled specimens when we finally ar- 
rived, and as tending the menagerie was a whole-time job for 
both of us, we had little chance to recover. This was a painful 
experience after months of hard work in difficult mountain 
country. 
Our boat on its way north from Chile was late in reaching 
Guayaquil, so altogether we had over a week’s stay. We were not 
sorry for this as it gave us a chance to recuperate and collect some 
more specimens. The best things we got were some Swainson’s 
Toucans—lovely tame creatures with enormous red and yellow 
bills—and a grison—an animal related to the martens, with light 
