254 TROPICAL WILD LIFE IN BRITISH GUIANA 



Photo by W. B. 

 FIG. 80. ROUNDED WING AND DEGENERATE TAIL OF TINAMOU 



the most superficial facts concerning them and their lives 

 from birth to death. 



I shall point this chapter with one of these facts, one 

 concerning a mere physical character, small in itself, but 

 which I shall try to make significant. For I shall consider 

 it as typifying the future work which I wish to carry on at 

 the Research Station, the sort of work which can only be 

 done in the field, and yet which is initiated and controlled by 

 the knowledge derived from books and museums. And I 

 shall take it up in detail as an illustration of one of the many 



