340 OUR SEARCH FOR A WILDERNESS. 



4j inches in the adult. From this it appears that the climbing 

 habit is not developed as early in the young Woodhcwer 

 as in Woodpeckers, in which it seems instinctive from 

 the first. 



Resting my camera for a moment against the buttress of 

 a giant mora, a small brown bird flew out and I recognized 

 another Wedge-billed Pygmy Woodhewer."" It flew to a 

 sapling and peered at me around the side. When I did not 

 move away it came nearer and voiced its disapproval by a 

 five-syllabled cry, chik-cliik-chik-chik-chik! This made me 

 suspicious and peering down a narrow crevice formed by a 

 deep fold in the buttress I caught a glint of white, and finally 

 made out three eggs, one of which seemed to be freshly broken. 

 A safer or cosier place could not be imagined. The crevice 

 was eighteen inches deep and only two inches wide, with the 

 opening of the fold almost closed by a small dangling bush 

 rope. The nest itself was only two feet above the ground. 

 The eggs were pure white and were laid on a thin net-work 

 of rootlets and fibres resting on the black mould which had 

 collected in the crevice. The following day it took me two 

 hours of hard work, cutting and sawing, to reach the nest, 

 and when jNfilady spooned up nest and eggs, four good-sized 

 scorpions came with them, unpleasant guests I should think! 

 There were two eggs in the nest and a broken one on the 

 ground outside which the parent had removed the night 

 before. This egg had probably been broken by the hurried 

 flight of the parent on the preceding day. The eggs were a 

 broad oval in shape, dull white and both measured 20 by 

 16 mm. 



Four other pairs of birds were nesting on this side of the 

 clearing, Yellow-winged Honey Creepers,"" Jungle Wrens, ^'^ 

 two pair of White-throated Robins,^-' and a Guiana Quail 

 or Douraquara.^ This last I found wholly by accident as I 

 was watching a dragon-fly which had been injured by a small 



