A JUNGLE CLEARING 49 
my passport applications and my jury evasions 
as Ornithologist. And now this playful Spirit 
of the Jungle permitted me to meditate cheer- 
fully on my ability to compare the faunas of New 
York and Guiana, and then proceeded to startle 
me with three salvos of birds, first physically and 
then emotionally. 
From the monotone of under-world sounds a 
strange little rasping detached itself, a reiterated, 
subdued scraping or picking. It carried my 
mind instantly to the throbbing theme of the 
Niebelungs, onomatopoetic of the little hammers 
forever busy in their underground work. I cir- 
cled a small bush at my side, and found that the 
sound came from one of the branches near the 
top; so with my glasses I began a systematic 
search. It was at this propitious moment, when 
I was relaxed in every muscle, steeped in the 
quiet of this hillside, and keen on discovering the 
beetle, that the first shell arrived. If I had been 
less absorbed I might have heard some distant 
chattering or calling, but this time it was as if a 
Spad had shut off its power, volplaned, kept 
ahead of its own sound waves, and bombed me. 
All that actually happened was that a band of lit- 
tle parrakeets flew down and alighted nearby. 
