A WILDERNESS LABORATORY 151 



peccaries, howling monkeys, vampires, agoutis, 

 jaguarondis, otters, sloths, and armadillos. 

 Hosts of birds, almost half the entire num- 

 ber of species found in the Colony, made 

 their home hereabouts, macaws, bellbirds, curas- 

 sows, trumpeters, toucans, the great harpy 

 eagle and the tiniest of iridescent humming- 

 birds. 



Within a week our great front room, full 

 thirty by sixty feet, with sixteen large windows, 

 was a laboratory in appearance and odor. Hun- 

 dreds of jars and vials, vivaria and insectaries, 

 microscopes, guns, and cameras, with all their 

 details and mysterious inner workings, left no 

 table vacant. With book-shelves up, there re- 

 mained only the walls, which little by little 

 became mosaics of maps, diagrams, sketches, 

 drying skins, Indian weapons, birds' nests and 

 shot-holes. Whiffs of formaline, chloroform, 

 and xylol, together with the odors of occasional 

 mislaid or neglected specimens, left no doubt 

 as to the character of the room. We found 

 that the tradewind came from the front, and 

 also that we had much to discuss after the lamps 

 were put out; so we turned the couches into 

 their rightful functions of cots, and the three of 



