56 EDGE OF THE JUNGLE 
and the one which eluded us was the big sulphur- 
breasted fellow. I remembered so vividly the 
painstaking care with which, week after week, we 
and our Indians tramped the jungle for miles,— 
through swamps and over rolling hills,—at last 
having to admit failure; and now I sat and 
watched thirty, forty, fifty of the splendid birds 
whirr past. As the last of the fifty-four flew on 
to their feast of berries, I recalled with difficulty 
my faded visions of northern birds. 
And so ended, as in the great finale of a pyro- 
technic display, my two hours on a hillside clear- 
ing. I can neither enliven it with a startling es- 
eape, nor add a thrill of danger, without using as 
many “ifs” as would be needed to make a Jersey 
meadow untenable. For example, if I had fallen 
over backwards and been powerless to rise or 
move, I should have been killed within half an 
hour, for a stray column of army ants was pass- 
ing within a yard of me, and death would await 
any helpless being falling across their path. But 
by searching out a copperhead and imitating 
Cleopatra, or with patience and persistence de- 
vouring every toadstool, the same result could 
be achieved in our home-town orchard. When on 
the march, the army ants are as innocuous at two 
