142 OUR SEARCH FOR A WILDERNESS. 



dear Venezuelan wilderness of last year. We were so glad 

 to be sleeping again in the open under the canopy of the 

 southern sky. At last we felt that we were on the threshold 

 of another wilderness. 



At four o'clock in the morning we awoke and heard far off 

 through the jungle, the old, familiar howling of the red 

 " baboons." About five a rooster crowed on board and was 

 answered by several on shore, and this seemed to awaken a 

 black who began singing from his hammock in a logic, when 

 a score of others took up the wild refrain and kept it up 

 until daylight. With the sudden rush of light came the dis- 

 tant bubbling of Twa-twas, those little thick-billed pygmy 

 Grosbeaks, 130 and the cackling hubbub of the Cassique 

 colony. 



Returning to Morawhanna we were made welcome at the 

 home of Mr. Howie King the Government Agent, while 

 waiting for our Hoorie launch. The government house is 

 well built and belonged formerly to Sir Everard im Thurn. It 

 is surrounded by a garden which must once have been mag- 

 nificent and which Mr. King is attempting to restore, clearing 

 away the undergrowth which has long overrun the beautiful 

 shrubs and flowering plants. The house is built on the 

 extreme southern end of a great island which extends in a 

 northw r est direction for about fifty miles far into Venezuela 

 territory, Mora Passage lying between it and Morawhanna 

 proper. Flowers were abundant, attracting many insects 

 and these in turn birds of a score or more species. Kiskadees 

 were nesting in low Bois Immortelle trees, Yellow-backed 

 Cassiques or Bunyahs, in a great saman overhanging the 

 house; while in the garden were Seed -eaters of several kinds, 

 together with Blue and Palm Tanagers and the beautiful 

 Moriche Orioles. 158 Guiana House Wrens 124 were nesting 

 indoors on the ceiling rafters and under the deep eaves of the 

 half veranda, half sitting-room was a beautiful pendent nest 



