48 OUR SEARCH FOR A WILDERNESS. 



then we entered a clear glade festooned by a maze of ropes 

 and cables, with here and there a lofty monkey-ladder lead- 

 ing upward by a wavy series of narrow steps. The cicadas 

 filled the air with the oriental droning of their song, and a 

 big Red-crested Woodpecker 88 called loudly from a half- 

 rotted, vine-choked tree. From the undergrowth came a 

 soft rolling trill, a crescendo of power and sweetness, and 

 when our Indian carrier whispered, "Gallina del monte" we 

 knew we were listening to the call of a Great Blue Tinamou 1 

 one of those strange birds looking like brown, tailless fowls, but 

 of so generalized a type that they form in many ways a link 

 between the ostrich -I'.ke forms and the rest of the bird world. 

 The bird which was calling soon became silent, but creeping 

 slowly along we were fortunate enough to discover its nest 

 on a bit of sunny turf near the end of a log in a partially over- 

 grown clearing. All the delights of bird-nesting seemed con- 

 summated the moment we caught sight of the two wonderful 

 eggs before us. The nest was merely a hollow scratched in 

 the grass, but the sun was reflected from two shining spheres 

 of metallic greenish blue, like two huge turquoises polished 

 as by the wheel of a lapidary. Never were such eggs; they 

 seemed of hard burnished metal, more akin to the stones 

 lying about them than to the organic world, and yet, even as 

 we looked, there appeared a tiny fracture, and in a few 

 minutes the beak of a Tinamou chick had broken through to 

 the outer air. The glistening cradle of stone would soon 

 fall apart and give to the tropical world another life one 

 more mote among the millions upon millions about us. 



Now and then we would come across a huge low mound, 

 clear of undergrowth, dotted with holes from which well- 

 trodden paths led off in every direction. Some of these were 

 six inches in width, so that we could easily walk in them. 

 A twig poked down the holes and twisted about would come 

 up covered with angry ants, great brownish-black fellows 



