92 TROPICAL WILD LIFE IX BRITLSH GUIANA 



York and Xew Jersey. Here it was iimisual to find an iso- 

 lated })ir(l, kingfishers and hawks excepted. Either its mate 

 was with it, or it was coni])anioned by a small Hock of birds 

 of unrelated ])iit friendly species. In the jungle, which I am 

 so often assured is well nigh devoid of life, I found birds 

 much more abundant than in temperate regions. To formu- 

 late a still more definite statement, whenever I retiu'ned 

 after a long tramp in the jungle, wlietlier along animal or 

 Indian trails, or by compass or sun through the untracked 

 "bush," I recalled more birds than would appear in an aver- 

 age walk in northern woods. Besides actual preponderance 

 of numbers, the breeding season had something to do witli 

 this. The period of nesting varied so much in different spe- 

 cies, that in any month, certain forms were found free from 

 nesting cares and gathered into flocks, and these, whetlier 

 gleaning from the very highest tree-tops or from mid- 

 growth, filled tlie jungle with movement and sound. In the 

 rubber clearing where weeds and grass seeds were a perpet- 

 ual crop, bird life was even more abundant, and at times the 

 finches flew up before one like crowds of grasshoppers. 



Xo niche or stratum of jungle was free from birds. 

 Some species roamed through and over it at will, others 

 were confined to certain definite areas. Some spent their 

 life on the ground and nevei* perched on twig or branch. 

 Others clung to bark from birtli to death, their road in life 

 a nc^'e^-ending series of vertical ascents; some spent the 

 hours of light in mid-air so high that to them the jungle 

 must have ay)peared as a lawn of grass does to us. There 

 were birds which penetrated the jimgle only at the demand 

 of sleep or honey, as certain swifts and hummingbirds, others 

 sped thither at the summons of carrion. Some attended the 

 course of armv ants, content to be o:uided bv the erratic 

 migration of these insects. Finally there were those unrep- 

 resented in any northern zone which lived out tlieir existence 

 among tlie liighest tree-cops, courting, nesting, feeding, 

 sleeping in an aerial world wliich at present is all but un- 



