ZOOLOGICAL SOCIETY 

 BULLETIN 



Published by the New York Zoological Society 



Vol. XIX 



JULY, 1916 



Number 4 



THE ESTABLISHMENT OF THE TROPICAL 

 RESEARCH STATION 



Bi/ William Eeebe. 



-^ TT 7-ITHIN one month after our party left 

 W New York City^ the Tropical Research 

 Station of the New York Zoological 

 Society became an established fact^ and the 

 succeeding weeks have proved the wisdom and 

 success of the undertaking. As in all types of 

 exploration^ the dominant factor in this work 

 was imcertainty ; the impossibility of knowing 

 what each day would reveal of error or 

 achievement. But our own single-mindedness of 

 purj)ose, combined with the unanimous good- 

 will and sympathy of the people of Guiana^ 

 left no doubt of ultimate success. 



The most difficult thing throughout was to 

 resist the lure of many openings and invita- 

 tions which seemed to offer opportunities almost 

 equal to the ideal with which I had set out. 

 Grenada embodied one's ideal of a tropical 

 island, and when a short walk revealed 

 rhinoceros beetles and hummingbirds' nests 

 and an abundance of strange birds, it seemed 

 well worth while to spend a month there. 

 Trinidad was still more of a temptation. Here 

 were men — most hospitable and as full of the 

 joy of scientific work as ourselves, and here 

 was a great island which I knew from foi-mer 

 experience to be teeming with interesting forms 

 of life from sea-beach to mountain-top. But 

 it was an island, and the headlands of Vene- 

 zuela were in sight. 



My ambition for the Zoological Society's 

 Station was to have a continent to draw upon. 

 So with real reeret we continued our vovase 



and reached Georgetown. The big kiskadees 

 shouted welcome from the unlovely corrugated 

 roofs of the stellings, just as they did seven 

 years before. And during all this time the 

 Botanical Gardens had lost no whit of beauty, 

 nor the people aught of their whole-souled 

 sympathy and generous hospitality. 



We found a house and servants awaiting us, 

 and here we made our headquarters. We be- 

 gan work in the Gardens but soon found that 

 this and the surrounding country, however well 

 adapted to certain forms of life and to sugar 

 plantations, offered too limited a field for our 

 investigations. I began a series of short trips 

 in various directions, radiating from George- 

 town as fingers radiate from a palm. And 

 again came the temptation to select one place 

 or the other as being almost all that we could 

 desire. We found interesting Indian villages 

 up the Demerara with good second-growth 

 jungle close at hand. Far beyond the Essequibo 

 River we motored to the end of the Pomeroon 

 Trail, where great moras and kakerallis towered 

 overhead, and we were almost persuaded. 



Then one day, in a downpour of rain, I fol- 

 lowed an old river trip of mine, made A'ears 

 ago, up the Essequibo to Bartica. Here I 

 knew at last that the Station would find a 

 worthy home. I returned at once, purchased 

 a houseful of furnishings and without a 

 'moment's delay we packed up again and trekked 

 inland. So swiftly did we work, that even in 

 this slow-moving tropic land we were able in 



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