1 66 Through the BraziHan Wilderness 



useful assistant. Harper, who like the others worked with 

 whole-hearted zeal and cheerfulness, also helped him, ex- 

 cept when he was engaged in helping the naturalists. The 

 two latter, Cherrie and Miller, had so far done the hardest 

 and the best work of the expedition. They had collected 

 about a thousand birds and two hundred and fifty mam- 

 mals. It was not probable that they would do as well 

 during the remainder of our trip, for we intended thence- 

 forth to halt as little, and march as steadily, as the coun- 

 try, the weather, and the condition of our means of trans- 

 portation permitted. I kept continually wishing that they 

 had more time in which to study the absorbingly inter- 

 esting life-histories of the beautiful and wonderful beasts 

 and birds we were all the time seeing. Every first-rate 

 museum must still employ competent collectors; but I 

 think that a museum could now confer most lasting bene- 

 fit, and could do work of most permanent good, by send- 

 ing out into the immense wildernesses, where wild nature 

 is at her best, trained observers with the gift of recording 

 what they have observed. Such men should be collectors, 

 for collecting is still necessary ; but they should also, and 

 indeed primarily, be able themselves to see, and to set 

 vividly before the eyes of others, the full life-histories of 

 the creatures that dwell in the waste spaces of the world. 

 At this point both Cherrie and Miller collected a 

 number of mammals and birds which they had not pre- 

 viously obtained ; whether any were new to science could 

 only be determined after the specimens reached the 

 American Museum. While making the round of his small 

 mammal traps one morning, Miller encountered an army 

 of the formidable foraging ants. The species was a large 



