JUNGLE LIFE AT AREMU. 311 



scent it was which was directing him straight as a magnet, 

 to some far distant bit of decaying flesh, and with what mar- 

 vellous vision the Vulture high overhead spied me and hung 

 for a moment watching me through a break in the foliage! 

 How dull and inefficient seemed all my organs of sense in 

 such a crisis as this. For a few moments I devoted myself 

 to discovering which was north, and from which direction 

 I had come. The cloudy sky and the sameness of all the 

 vistas through the jungle completely foiled me, and I had to 

 give it up and ignominiously unravel my puzzle deliberately 

 and unromantically. I stuck my long-handled butterfly 

 net in the ground and began to describe circles about it — 

 widening them gradually, until on the third round I inter- 

 sected the trail and went on my way. 



The danger of being lost is by no means an imaginary one, 

 and even with a compass it is sometimes difficult to retrace 

 one's tracks. The Indians themselves have to guard against 

 becoming confused when in a new region. Before I reached 

 the main trail, and met the returning i)arty, I saw a number 

 of the exquisite White-capped Manakins,'"" clad in shining 

 black save for their snowy caps. Their flight, unlike their 

 white-breasted cousins \yhich we met in Venezuela, was 

 noiseless. They were far from silent however, twanging 

 their little vocal chords in an apology for a song — a wheezy, 

 grasshopper-like buzz. The females were silent, sombre 

 litde beings — dull olive green above, with a grayish cap 

 and paler below. 



After lunch at one o'clock in the afternoon, I started out 

 again and climbed to the summit of a densely forested hill, 

 southeast of the mine clearing. The tree-tops were filled 

 with birds and not for a moment was I entirely out of sight 

 or sound of one or more species. A few yards from the clear- 

 ing I followed up an excited cackling and found a pair of 

 splendid Red-crested Woodpeckers.'*' They had a nest in 



