184 IN THE WILDS OF SOUTH AMERICA 



of forest-trees, feeding on insects. The nest is placed in a 

 hole in the bank of some wild ravine or river. 



The abundance of bird-life, and also the variety, found 

 in the lowland forest of British Guiana is bewildering, even 

 to the seasoned field-observer; and nowhere in all South 

 America are the feathered folk clothed in more brilliant and 

 gorgeous colors. Evolution, it seems, has run riot in al- 

 most every conceivable direction in an effort to provide 

 each species with some special color or characteristic that 

 might enhance its beauty or better suit it to compete suc- 

 cessfully with its hosts of neighbors. Thus we find the 

 king-tody, a species of small flycatcher that preys upon 

 insects. The body of the bird is inconspicuously colored, 

 but the head is adorned with a crest of the most vivid scar- 

 let feathers. As the bird sits quietly upon some low perch, 

 the crest is depressed and invisible; then suddenly the 

 flaming crown is erected and spread in fan-shaped forma- 

 tion, when it resembles a brilliant flower newly burst into 

 bloom. Is it not possible that this flashing bit of color may 

 attract some passing insect, which instead of finding nec- 

 tar meets destruction? 



However, I do not believe that the survival of every 

 species is dependent upon some one particular patch of 

 color or exotic appendage which it may possess. It does 

 not seem to me possible, for instance, that one species of 

 humming-bird owes its existence to a green throat-patch, 

 or another of similar size and habits to a red or blue one; 

 nor that one bird of paradise persists because it has curious, 

 long appendages on its head or shoulders while a second 

 one may have similar ones in its tail; but rather does it 

 show that evolution tries many experiments. Each ani- 

 mate thing is full of latent buds, it would seem, any one 

 of which might break out at any time, prompted by an im- 

 pulse or conditions of which we know nothing. If the 

 result of such newly acquired variation is beneficial, the 

 species would naturally persist; if injurious, it would re- 

 sult in extermination; if indifferent (neither harmful nor 



