A JUNGLE CLEARING 55 



me. Monstrous beaks, parodies in pastels of un- 

 heard-of blues and greens, breasts which glowed 

 like mirrored suns, — orange overlaid upon blind- 

 ing yellow, — and at every flick of the tail a tren- 

 chant flash of intense scarlet. All these colors 

 set in frames of jet-black plumage, and suddenly 

 hurled through blue sky and green foliage, made 

 the hillside a brilliant moving kaleidoscope. 



Some flew straight over, with several quick 

 flaps, then a smooth glide, flaps and glide. A 

 few banked sharply at sight of me, and wheeled 

 to right or left. Others alighted and craned their 

 necks in suspicion; but all sooner or later disap- 

 peared eastward in the direction of a mighty 

 jungle tree just bursting into a myriad of ber- 

 ries. They were sulphur-breasted toucans, and 

 they were silent, heralded only by the sound of 

 their wings and the crash of their pigments. I 

 can think of no other assemblage of jungle crea* 

 tures more fitted to impress one with the prodi^ 

 gality of tropical nature. Four years before, w^e 

 set ourselves to work to discover the first eggs 

 and young of toucans, and after weeks of heart- 

 breaking labor and disappointments we suc- 

 ceeded. Out of the five species of toucans living 

 in this part of Guiana we found the nests of four. 



