THE LURE OF KARTABO 27 
gratitude to us. At least from April to Septem- 
ber he sang every day, and if my interpretation 
be antnropomorphic, why, so much the better for 
anthropomorphism. At any rate, before we left, 
all five wrens sat on a little shrub and imitated 
the morning stars, and our hearts went out to 
the little virile featherlings, who had lost none of 
their enthusiasm for life in this tropical jungle. 
Their one demand in this great wilderness was 
man’s presence, being never found in the jungle 
except in an inhabited clearing, or, as I have 
found them, clinging hopefully to the vanishing 
ruins of a dead Indian’s benab, waiting and sing- 
ing in perfect faith, until the jungle had crept 
over it all and they were compelled to give up 
and set out in search of another home, within 
sound of human voices. 
Bare as our leaf-carpeted bamboo-glade ap- 
peared, yet a select little company found life 
worth living there. The dry sand beneath the 
house was covered with the pits of ant-lions, and 
as we watched them month after month, they 
seemed to have more in common with the grains 
of quartz which composed their cosmos than with 
.the organic world. By day or night no ant or 
other edible thing seemed ever to approach or be 
