JUNGLE LIFE 85 



Here began the domain of creatures of moderate flight and 

 of hmited chmbing abihty, which, unhke the tortoise and the 

 tapir were not bound to the ground. Here I was always 

 certain to find manakins of several species, and antbirds of 

 still more. Here the trumpeters and jungle wrens uttered 

 their characteristic calls. At night opossums wandered, 

 while in the twilight of mid-day, morphos — those bits of 

 quintessent pigment — flapped leisurely along, together with 

 their opposites, the skeleton butterflies. 



The mid- jungle was the heart of the tropical life. Here 

 I could no longer feel myself on equal terms in height. 1 

 had most painfulh'^ to crane my neck upward, and to study 

 the inhabitants of this suspended cosmos with glasses or shot- 

 gun. Here the big curassows and guans pei'ched and nested, 

 the great pigeons, the motmots, jacamars, trogons, gold- 

 birds and a host of tanagers and flycatchers and strange 

 tropic forms chirped, sang, fed, courted and nested. In 

 the mid-heights the l)ig trec-fi'ogs boomed, and the sloths 

 vegetated from birth until the claws of a harpy eagle gripped 

 them. Squirrels were so rare as to appear strange forms, 

 known chiefly from memory; marmosets and coatis usurped 

 their place by day, while kinkajous climbed about by moon- 

 light. Orchids, air-plants and lianas rioted, and unknown 

 growths dropped a myriad plummets, a warp of aerial roots ; 

 threads until they reached the ground, then becoming in 

 turn twine, cord, rope and cable. It was the great center 

 of life of the Soutli American jungles, a zone vibrating with 

 a myriad forms suspended half-way between heaven and 

 earth. Still it was a zone with decidedly earthward tenden- 

 cies. Some of its inhabitants descended to sleep, others to 

 feed or to build tlieir homes. The majority, however, re- 

 mained throughout their lives as they were born, plankton 

 of the jungle. 



Yet another continent of life remains to be discovered, 

 not upon the earth, l)ut one to two hundred feet above it, 

 extending over thousands of square miles of South America. 



