244 EDGE OF THE JUNGLE 
with islands and lily-pads as havens, and water- 
ways in every direction, Rikki is reduced chiefly 
to grasshoppers and such small game. He has 
spread along the entire coast, through the cane- 
fields and around the rice-swamps, and it will 
not be his fault if he does not eventually get a 
foothold in the jungle itself. 
No month or day or hour fails to bring vital 
changes—tragedies and comedies—to the net- 
work of life of these tropical gardens; but as we 
drive along the broad paths of an afternoon, the 
quiet vistas show only waving palms, weaving 
vultures, and swooping kiskadees, with bursts of 
color from bougainvillea, flamboyant, and queen 
of the flowers. At certain times, however, the 
tide of visible change swelled into a veritable 
bore of life, gently and gradually, as quiet wa- 
ters become troubled and then pass into the 
seething uproar of rapids. In late afternoon, 
when the long shadows of palms stretched their 
blue-black bars across the terra-cotta roads, the 
foliage of the green bamboo islands was dotted 
here and there with a scattering of young herons, 
white and blue and parti-colored. Idly watch- 
ing them through glasses, I saw them sleepily 
preening their sprouting feathers, making inef- 
