JUNGLE LIFE AT AREMU 319 



Guiana Crested Tinamou 2 arose with a roar. I secured 

 one with a quick snap shot and we tied up the brace of birds 

 with a slender tough bush-thread. Fastening head, feet and 

 wings together, the Indian tied them ingeniously around his 

 waist, the birds hanging down behind out of the way. 



At the sound of the guns three tiny male Purple-throated 

 Euphonias 138 clad in purple jackets, yellow caps and waist- 

 coats, came down to see what the noise was about. They 

 were ridiculously tame and sang their simple chattering song 

 in our very faces. 



In the fourth valley we found a perfect maze of agouti 

 tracks mingled with the fresh imprint of a tapirs feet. 

 Francis showed me the spot where he had shot one of these 

 "bush-cows" the week before. A few yards beyond we 

 found a deer's track and in some way the Indian seemed 

 to know that the animal was close at hand. We crawled 

 silently for twenty or thirty yards through a shallow creek, 

 then separated and crept along the slope, one on each side. 

 A sudden rustling of vines came from a bend in the stream 

 and we both caught sight of the bright rufous flanks of a deer. 

 We secured it and then for some reason Francis remained 

 perfectly quiet for five minutes while a delightful bit of 

 wilderness life appeared close to me. 



The smoke from my gun was still clinging to the great fern 

 fronds overhead, when a second deer, a doe, walked fearlessly 

 past along the opposite slope, stopping to nibble at a leaf 

 now and then, and at last vanished in the underbrush. I 

 was about to climb down to the deer we had shot when I 

 heard a splash and a weak little bleat, and, looking at a pool 

 ahead, there I spied the tiniest of fawns standing in the 

 shallows, looking full at me, and now then splashing the 

 water. 



I whistled and the little thing started toward me fearlessly, 

 standing knee-deep in the water, its tiny rufous form decor- 



