A HUNT FOR HOATZINS 109 



nestlings so completely refute the good baron's 

 thesis. 



As I reached the door I selected a volume at 

 random to take back to Colony House. I put 

 out the lights and turned a moment to look 

 about. The platinum wires still glowed dully, 

 and weak moonlight now filled the room with a 

 silver grayness. I wondered whether, in the 

 magic of some of these tropical nights, when the 

 last ball had been pocketed and the last swizzle 

 drunk belowstairs, some of the book-lovers of 

 olden times, who had read these volumes and 

 turned down the creased pages, did not return 

 and again laugh and cry over them. There was 

 no inharmonious note: no thrilling short stories, 

 no gaudy chromatic bindings, no slangy terse 

 titles, no magazines or newspapers. Such gen- 

 tlefolk as came could have sat there and listened 

 to the crickets and the occasional cry of a dis- 

 tant heron and have been untroubled by the 

 consciousness of any passage of time. 



I learned that this Library Club had been 

 the oldest in the West Indies, founded about 

 three quarters of a century ago. It had long 

 ceased to exist, and no one ever disturbed the 

 quietness of the gradual dissolution of this ad- 



