ZOOLOGICAL SOCIETY BULLETIN 



1373 



VIEW NORTHEAST FROM KALACOON 

 Three rivers and nine islands are visible in this direction 



desired only to know where such nests were^ 

 there to go and study and photograph. 



"Jeremiah — listen ! You sabe we no want 

 bird here. Must go and show nest, eh?" 



"Me sabe." 



Accompanied by one of us, off he started 

 again, without a murmur. In the slanting 

 rays of the sun he walked steadily down the 

 trail from Kalacoon as if he had not been hunt- 

 ing since early dawn. An hour passed and the 

 sun swung still lower when a panting voice 

 gasped out: 



"Huge labaria, yards long! Big as leg!" 



The flight of queen bees and their swarms, 

 the call to arms in a sleeping camp creates 

 somewhat the commotion that the news of the 

 bushmaster aroused with us. For he is really 

 what his name implies. What the elephant is 

 to the African jungles, this serpent is to the 

 Guiana wilderness. He fears nothing — save 

 one thing, hunting ants, before which all the 

 world flees. And this was the first bushmaster 

 of the rainy season. 



Jeremiah had been left to mount guard over 

 the serpent which had been found near the 

 trogon tree. Already the light was failing; so 

 we walked rapidlj^ with gun, snake-pole and 

 canvas bag. Parrakeets hurtled bamboowards 

 to roost ; doves scurried off and small rails flew 

 from our path and flopped into the reeds. Our 

 route led through the open-trailed rubber 

 plantation of the Hill's Estate toward the edge 

 of the high bush, and we did not slacken speed 

 until we were in the dim light which filtered 

 through the western branches. 



At the top of a slope we heard a yell — a 

 veritable red Indian yell — and there our 

 Akawai hunter was dancing excitedly about, 

 shouting to us to come on. "Snake, he move !" 

 We arrived panting, and he tremblingly led me 

 along a fallen tree and pointed to the dead 

 leaves. I well knew the color and joattern of 

 a bushmaster. I had had them brought to me 

 dead and had killed them myself, and I had 

 seen them in their cage behind glass. But now, 

 though I was thinking bushmaster and looking 

 bushmaster, my eyes insisted on registering 



