308 OUR SEARCH FOR A WILDERNESS. 



the tropical jungle have sweet single notes and calls but 

 most have harsh primitive voices. All are characterized by 

 a solemnity or plaintiveness of tone, and none that I can 

 recall have the joyful theme which fills the song of this little 

 pioneer from more civilized regions; a song which is out 

 of place away from mankind. Their sweetness has touched 

 the heart of the native Guianans, who call these Wrens 

 God-birds. 



It is nine o'clock, cloudy and cool, and I am sitting near 

 the old hut and write on a trunk fallen across the trail. A 

 shuffling of feet comes to my ears and soon a good-sized opos- 

 sum, but smaller than ours of the north, trots swiftly toward 

 me. Not until he gets within arm's reach does he realize 

 that something is wrong. I sit as immovable as stone and 

 he puts a grimy little hand on the very edge of this journal. 

 His nose works furiously, his rat-like beady eyes fairly bulge. 

 Then he turns, just as I grab at his tail, but his hind claws 

 scratch my arm so severely that I loose him, and he flees back 

 on his trail rolling awkwardly along but making remark- 

 ably good time. He was probably on his way home after an 

 early morning's hunt. Thus the jungle folk have already 

 begun to close in on this deserted clearing. 



An hour later as I am kneeling quietly some six feet from 

 the log, busy liberating a beautiful little butterfly from the 

 tangle of a spider's web, I am surprised to see the same 

 opossum trot past. I know him because he has a kink 

 in one ear. To see what the little fellow would do I leap 

 toward him, but he has encountered me once and come to no 

 harm, so he will not be turned back again. Instead of dodg- 

 ing me, the opossum only increases his speed, crosses the 

 log, drops out of sight among the bushes, snorts twice to 

 himself, and is swallowed up forever by the dark jungle. 

 This log is apparently his regular highway, and he chooses 

 to risk my apparently fierce onslaught and to run over the 



