52 TROPICAL WILD LIFE IN BRITISH GUIANA 



stood Kalacoon, which, as I have said, by the courtesy of 

 Mr. Withers, we used as the Research Station. The pres- 

 ence of these two houses has had considerable effect on the 

 fauna of the immediate neighborhood. Through the rubber 

 plantation extended several roads, and a wide trail made by 

 ourselves ran from Kalacoon straight back through the sec- 

 ondgrowth to the jungle. It was along these that much 

 of the life of clearing and secondgrowth was observed. 



This zone began then at the banks of the Mazaruni 

 River and extended back for about one mile. Here, visible 

 from almost any distance, stood the jungle a great cliff of 

 foliage which rose sheer, high above all the new growth, ma- 

 jestic, sublime. 



Xot a moment did man dare rest upon his labors. Day 

 and night without cessation the jungle sent forth upon the 

 wind, or with the aid of birds and other agents, untold 

 myriads of spores and seeds which soon sprouted and laid 

 the foundation of a living vegetable talus, a stealthy out- 

 reaching finger which, if left unheeded, would soon have 

 strengthened into a hand, whose grip was not to be broken 

 without much toil, by hours of tiresome labor with cutlass 

 and hoe. 



It was no light matter to attack a tropical jungle in 

 its full might and power and to hew out hill after hill of 

 open agricultural country. One by one the great giants 

 were felled mora, greenheart, crabwood each crashing its 

 way to earth after centuries of slow upward growth. The 

 undergrowth in the dark, high jungle is comparatively 

 scanty. Light-starved and fungus-plagued, the brush and 

 saplings are stunted and weak. So when the large trees 

 were down it was an easy matter to cut out the thin smaller 

 growth. The great stumps were left standing and now the 

 erstwhile jungle showed only a shambles of raw wood and 

 shrivelled foliage. After a time fire was applied, and quick- 

 ly, as in the case of resinous trees, or with long, slow smol- 



