Occasional Notes. 165 



Colonial Development. — This has been urged over and over agaiu 

 for the last century, with little result. We must not however forget that 

 slow progress has been made, for even during the last fifty years steamers 

 have been run on the rivers and the exploitation of balata, gold and 

 diamonds carried on. Much more might have been done, but we have not 

 been quite at a stand-still. Last time I went up the Demerara River 

 I noticed much improvement along the banks ; framed houses hid largely 

 taken the place of troolie huts and there were many indications that the 

 jungle was being cleared and cultivated. When I first visited the same 

 district the conditions under which the bovianders lived were sordid in the 

 extreme and yet they seemed happy. Their lives were fiee from real care, 

 for so little was required to keep them going from day to day. At that 

 time I found primitive Indian settlements up the creeks where now a 

 different type is to be seen. There is no doubt that a slow transition is 

 now going on and the process is not perhaps very conspicuous or interest- 

 ing. But something may result in time that will be beneficial to the 

 whole colony — J .R. 



Mr. Beebe's New Book. — " Tropical Wild Life " is a grand step in the 

 right direction. Never before have we had an ornithological book so 

 generally readable and yet so scientific. Even what the average reider 

 will call the dry parts are enlivened by tit-bits of information about the 

 manners and customs of birds that make them interesting to anyone. 

 Mr. Beebe will no doubt deplore those necessary duties which prevent for 

 the present his continuing the work at Kalacoon. Everything now is left 

 over till after the war, when possibly Mr. Beebe, who is or was in a 

 Flying Corps, may perhaps find some way of hovering above the forest 

 canopy to study the wild life which is now so imperfectly known. The 

 Research Station has been a success as far as it went, and we may hope 

 for greater knowledge when it is continued. It would indeed be a 

 disaster were anything to happen that might prevent further investigation 

 on the lines laid down. More and more every year is it found necessary 

 to study nature in the wilds instead of the museum or office. Natural 

 history can hardly be learnt without real study of living animals ; the 

 nature of the orgauism is learnt from seeing what it does. It is of course 

 necessary to know what it is but even this can hardly be gathered by 

 dissecting or studyiug outside characters. 



The book is full of illustrations some of which are excellent and all 

 good. Messrs. Hartley and Howes collaborate and there are two appen- 

 dices by Rev. Walter White and another. —J. R. 



Surinam Folk Tales. — There is an interesting paper in the Journal of 

 American Folk-lore by A. P. and T. E. Penard, giving a short account of 

 the Anansi stories of Surinam, with four examples. The following from 

 the foot notes are worth reprinting : — 



" The bakroe is commonly conceived as a dwarf, one side of whose 

 body is wood and the other flesh. When anyone approaches him the 

 bakroe presents his side of wood to receive the blows which he expects ; 



