A YARD OF JUNGLE 251 



a hawk found a giant snail crawling up the 

 trunk and devoured it. The insect-eaters of the 

 trunk numbered nine and showed no interest in 

 the berries. Two were woodpeckers and seven 

 woodhewers. 



These latter are a strange tropical family 

 four hundred strong, and all the very essence 

 of protective coloring. Their habits of life make 

 of them wandering bits of bark, easy to detect 

 when they are in motion, but vanishing utterly 

 when they are quiet. Their similarity in dress 

 is remarkable. They may be large or small, 

 short or long-tailed, with beaks blunt, sharp, 

 straight, curved, thick, or needle-pointed. In 

 these characters they differ; by these points 

 they must know one another. But their colors 

 are almost identical. Their olives or browns 

 invariably warm into rich foxy rufous on wings 

 and tail, while over head and shoulders a shower 

 of light streaks has fallen, bits of sunlight fixed 

 in down. 



Further details belong to the literature of orni- 

 thology. But the colors of the berry-hunters — 

 these baffle description, yet we cannot pass them 

 by in silence. The blood and orange splashed 

 on black of the toucans, the scarlet and yellow 



