INTRODUCTION xxv 



and the monster reptile would be literally eaten 

 alive. On the other hand, a small Cayman will 

 dash fearlessly into a school of these fish and 

 snap up as many as he can catch. 



"Who is master of the Jungle?" said the 

 great snake in Kipling's story, ''Red Dog." 

 There is no master of the jungle, for each master 

 will find his master. Even the wild bees in that 

 wonderful story are snapped up by the fly- 

 catchers. 



Far in the forest a little band of red monkeys^ 

 are sitting high in a giant palm, which spreads 

 its great fan-leaves twenty feet out from the 

 trunk. They sing their weird song in the moon- 

 light, the most awe-inspiring sound in all animate 

 nature. For twenty minutes or half an hour 

 their night-song swells out in great pipe-organ 

 chords, then dies slowly away, and the monkeys 

 go roving over the roof of the jungle, leaping 

 from branch to branch as they pass from one tree 

 to another. Crossing a bridging liana, the leader 

 suddenly stops and leaps back, but too late, for 

 the beautifully mottled tree boa lying coiled on 

 the liana has struck. Quicker than the leap 

 of the frightened monkey, quicker than the stroke 

 of a jaguar's paw, so quick that the eye of man 

 could not follow it, the snake has struck and the 

 big monkey is snatched from midair and is in- 

 stantly wrapped in the tight coils, with every bone 

 broken, every muscle crushed in one lightning 

 stroke. 



Everywhere in the jungle is beauty, everywhere 

 is love and life, hate and death, feast and famine, 

 but it is all most alluring. 



