A JUNGLE CLEARING 49 



my passport applications and my jury evasions 

 as Ornithologist. And now this playful Spirit 

 of the Jungle permitted me to meditate cheer- 

 fully on my ability to compare the faunas of New 

 York and Guiana, and then proceeded to startle 

 me with three salvos of birds, first physically and 

 then emotionally. 



From the monotone of under-world sounds a 

 strange little rasping detached itself, a reiterated, 

 subdued scraping or picking. It carried my 

 mind instantly to the throbbing theme of the 

 Niebelungs, onomatopoetic of the little hammers 

 forever busy in their underground work. I cir- 

 cled a small bush at my side, and found that the 

 sound came from one of the branches near the 

 top; so with my glasses I began a systematic 

 search. It was at this propitious moment, when 

 I was relaxed in every muscle, steeped in the 

 quiet of this hillside, and keen on discovering the 

 beetle, that the first shell arrived. If I had been 

 less absorbed I might have heard some distant 

 chattering or calling, but this time it was as if a 

 Spad had shut off its power, volplaned, kept 

 ahead of its own sound waves, and bombed me. 

 All that actually happened was that a band of lit- 

 tle parrakeets flew down and alighted nearby. 



