18 



THE OOLOGIST 



dark colored one with yellow crown 

 and and the other two dark, with 

 white crowns and vivid blue rumps. 



While we were skinning this after- 

 noon, a boy came in with a fine speci- 

 men of the Umbrella bird, whose body 

 we ate for supper after preserving 

 the skin. I had a good shot at a fine 

 wild turkey or Guan this morning but 

 got nothing except a few feathers. 



We had a wonderful supper served 

 to us tonight, so remarkable in fact, 

 that I give the menu just as it was 

 brought on the table: Chicken soup, 

 roast chicken, Umbrella bird, fried 

 plantain, rice, Panella syrup, Guava 

 jam, coffee, hot bread. 



This is really exceptional and Chap- 

 man and I are rejoicing at our good 

 fortune. 



March 15th. This morning I went 

 into the western forest and only took 

 five birds, none of them remarkable. 

 After skinning, I spent the afternoon 

 sketching and collecting vegetation. 

 In the evening, as we were having a 

 smoke and recounting the events of 

 the expedition, Cherrie, Ring, Furetes 

 and O'Connell arrived, with the news 

 that as next week is Holy week, no 

 drivers could be secured for our pack 

 animals, so we will have to leave in 

 the morning. Ring brought a fine fox 

 squirrel with him and Furetes a huge 

 wood rat thirty inches long. Its front 

 feet were curiously divided and 

 specialized for climbing among the 

 bamboo shoots in which it lived. (This 

 animal later proved new to science, 

 but has not been given a name as yet). 



March 16th. We left Buenavista at 

 7 a, m. all on good animals which 

 Cherrie had secured in Villavicencio 

 before departing yesterday. We fol- 

 lowed the same trail that I came over 

 last week and nothing of particular in- 

 terest happened, except when a large 

 Gallictus ran across the trail about 

 fifty feet in front of us. We had 



another good look at the beautiful 

 roaring river at Riporal. Chapman 

 and Cherrie took several photographs 

 of the crown on the trail and many of 

 the unmatched scenery. We readied 

 Susumucoo, at 11 a. m., where we se- 

 cured some eggs and chocolate and 

 then went on to Monteradondo, arriv- 

 ing there just at five, ten hours after 

 starting. 



Just beyond Susumucoo, Chapman 

 shot two fine Red-primaried flycatch- 

 ers. Unfortunately they fell way 

 down in the underbrush on the side 

 of an almost perpendicular cliff. Ring 

 and I went down by hanging on to 

 .shrubs and roots and secured one of 

 the birds. It was then found to be im- 

 possible to get up again by the route 

 we went down as the roots would not 

 hold when our whole weight was put 

 upon them. We were perhaps two 

 hundred feet down the mountain, in a 

 very bad place on the cliff side. From 

 this position we made our way over to 

 an old water running down the side of 

 the mountain, but the stones slipped 

 too much from under us and we had 

 to abandon this way of getting up 

 again. There was just one thing left 

 to do and that was to go up a land 

 slide of shale, by clinging to the more 

 firmly imbedded stones. After some 

 consideration, we started up, but soon 

 found that the shale slipped badly 

 from under us. Below was a drop for 

 a thousand feet to the rocky river 

 valley and above nearly two hundred 

 feet of climb. We stuck to it through 

 necessity, clinging with our nails and 

 shoes. Once the stones started under 

 me and I thought I was gone, but my 

 foot caught against another rock. We 

 finally got to the top, almost exhaust- 

 ed only to find that a solid wall at the 

 edge of the trail confronted us. Ring 

 got up unaided, but I had to be hauled 

 up by hands from above. When we 

 took the bird to Chapman, he pro- 



