152 A NATURALIST IN THE GUI AN AS 



CHAPTER XI 



FAUNA AND FLOBA OF LA PRISION — THE FOREST 



Bejucales — Curassows, grullas — Tinamus — Habits of curassows— The king- 

 tody and other flycatchers — Scarcity of snakes in the forest — The 

 jaguar — Orchids— The laj as — The evenings at La Prision. 



The Caura runs along the southern side of the clearing 

 at La Prision. On the north, east, and west the latter is 

 bounded by forest. This forest, as I have already said, 

 forms part of that vast stretch of woodland which includes 

 within its limits the most interesting yet least known part 

 of the tropics. The tonca-bean collectors have cut tracks 

 from the settlement to the lajas, in whose vicinity they 

 build their huts during crop time and where they dry the 

 beans they may have collected. The most important of 

 these tracks reaches a spot called Esperanza, and is, I 

 should say, about fifteen miles in length. Here the tracks 

 of the sarrapieros end, and this was the farthest point 

 reached by anyone at the settlement until March 1898, 

 when I cut a path to the mountain of Turagua. These 

 tracks of the tonca-bean gatherers proved very useful to 

 us in our collecting expeditions in the forest. I usually 

 left the house at daybreak accompanied by one of my 

 boys, who carried my twelve-bore breech-loader and a 

 haversack with our midday meal and collecting imple- 

 ments. For killing birds there is no more convenient 

 weapon than a muzzle-loader of small gauge. I only 

 used my breech-loader for large birds of prey or for big 



