PREFACE. 



In the following pages we have set down the tale of two 

 searches for a wilderness. These two private expeditions 

 were undertaken for the purpose of learning something about 

 the birds and other wild creatures of countries further south 

 than any we had yet visited. Both trips were successful; 

 for the regions we explored were wilderness wonderlands, — 

 full of beauty, abounding in the romance which ever en- 

 hances wild creatures and wild men, and they were part 

 of the great zoological " dark continent" which we hope to 

 devote our lives to studying. 



On our first search the collecting of live birds was inci- 

 dental, although we brought back forty speciniens of fourteen 

 species. 



On the second search, however, we took with us an 

 assistant, Mr. Lee S. Crandall. By his assiduity in trapping 

 and in arousing the interest of native coolie and black boys, 

 he assembled a splendid collection of almost three hundred 

 living birds of fifty-one species. These we brought to the 

 New York Zoological Park, wliere no less than thirty-three 

 species were new to the collection. In addition many small 

 mammals and reptiles were collected. 



Part I. 



We left New York on February 22d, 1908, on the Royal 

 Mail Steamship " Trent," and after touching at Jamaica, 

 Colon, Savanilla and La Guayra, wc disembarked at Port 

 of Spain, Trinidad, on March 9th. Leaving this port in a 

 Venezuelan sloop wc cruised among the cafios north of the 



