A MULE-BACK JOURNEY 345 



approached, as I believe it must occasionally do, though 

 not necessarily at regular intervals, the weaker individuals 

 were the first to feel the pinch of a reduced subsistence which 

 automatically rendered them stiU less suited to obtain a 

 livelihood. Their rapidly faUing vigor also prevented them 

 from coping with their natural enemies — ^whether parasitic 

 or predaceous, so that they were soon eliminated and only 

 those that entered the struggle in the strongest, healthiest 

 condition stood a reasonable show of surviving. 



While tramping through the cane-thickets, we found 

 the nest of a pair of red-breasted thrushes. Both parent 

 birds fluttered over our heads and with loud, angry cries 

 expressed their resentment and anxiety. The nest was 

 betrayed by the birds' very actions. It was cunningly con- 

 cealed in a dense tangle of leaves and creepers, and was 

 not unlike that made by our own robin; but the three eggs 

 were heavily spotted with brown instead of being of a plain 

 blue color. 



When dusk overtook us on the first day out of Pescado, 

 thirty-six miles southeast of Bella Vista, we were riding 

 over a grass-covered plateau with a stream flowing along 

 one side of it. It was therefore unnecessary to seek an 

 Indian dwelling for the purpose of securing forage. We 

 picketed the mules, and slept out in the open. The next 

 morning a Quichua woman with a fowl under her arm passed 

 along the trail; we asked her the price of the bird, as we 

 suspected that she was taking it to some village to sell. 

 "Four bolivianos," she replied promptly. The mule-driver 

 remarked, very emphatically, that the price was exorbitant. 

 "But," she protested, "this is a game-cock. It is a good 

 fighter and can whip any rooster in the coimtry." The 

 arriero then informed her that we wanted the rooster to 

 eat, and not to fight. "Oh," said the woman, "that is an- 

 other matter; sixty centavos" and the sale was concluded 

 without further argument. 



Apparently the birds of the highlands were nesting. We 

 saw numbers of newly constructed nests in the cacti and 



