68 OUR SEARCH FOR A WILDERNESS, 



from the stub I secure a third photograph. Off she goes to 

 the nearest palms, shrieking at the top of her lungs, and is 

 joined by her mate. 



We cut a hole in the trunk near the ground, and there find 

 the nest of the parrot. Three white eggs, one of which is 

 pipped, and a young bird just hatched reward us, all resting 

 on a bed of chips. The diminutive polly is scantily clothed 

 with white down, and while in the shade lies motionless. 

 When a ray of warm sunlight strikes it the little fellow be- 

 comes uneasy and crawls and tumbles about until it escapes 

 from the unwelcome heat. During its activity it keeps up a 

 continuous, low, raucous cry like the mew of a catbird. Far 

 out on the expanse of black pitch — six feet in the depth of 

 this dark cavity! — this little squawking mite surely had a 

 strange babyhood to fit it for its future life in the sunlight 

 among the palms. 



It was the Yellow-fronted Amazon Parrot,"'' a common 

 species with dealers everywhere, but we shall never see 

 one in a cage, uttering inane requests for crackers, without 

 thinking of the interesting family we discovered at the pitch 

 lake. 



We found strange fish in the pools of water scattered over 

 the lake. Some must have wriggled their way over dry land 

 for some distance to get there. There were round, sunfish- 

 like fellows {Aequidens) and others, long and slender, with 

 wicked-looking teeth (Hoplias malabaricus). Most curious 

 of all were the Loricates or armored catfish, with a double 

 row of large overlapping scales enclosing their body from 

 head to tail. Like the Hoatzins among the birds, these fish 

 are strange relics of the past, preserved almost unchanged 

 from the ancient fossil Devonian forms. 



Days passed like hours in this wonderland, and the 

 time for returning to civilization came all too soon. The 

 strange living beings which filled jungle and air and water, 



