A JUNGLE CLEARING 55 
me. Monstrous beaks, parodies in pastels of un- 
heard-of blues and greens, breasts which glowed 
like mirrored suns,—orange overlaid upon blind- 
ing yellow,—and at every flick of the tail a tren- 
chant flash of intense scarlet. All these colors 
set in frames of jet-black plumage, and suddenly 
hurled through blue sky and green foliage, made 
the hillside a brilliant moving kaleidoscope. 
Some flew straight over, with several quick 
flaps, then a smooth glide, flaps and glide. A 
few banked sharply at sight of me, and wheeled 
to right or left. Others alighted and craned their 
necks in suspicion; but all sooner or later disap- 
peared eastward in the direction of a mighty 
jungle tree just bursting into a myriad of ber- 
ries. They were sulphur-breasted toucans, and 
they were silent, heralded only by the sound of 
their wings and the crash of their pigments. I 
can think of no other assemblage of jungle crea- 
tures more fitted to impress one with the prodi- 
gality of tropical nature. Four years before, we 
set ourselves to work to discover the first eggs 
and young of toucans, and after weeks of heart- 
breaking labor and disappointments we suc- 
ceeded. Out of the five species of toucans living 
in this part of Guiana we found the nests of four, 
