THE LIFE OF THE ABARY SAVANNAS. 379 



welcomed as old friends Barn'^' and Tree Swallows,'^" 

 whose twittering forms brought our northern autumn 

 marshes vividly to mind. Many Flycatchers and Seed- 

 eaters were nesting close by, while the beautiful Orioles '''" 

 clung to their pendent nests over the water, and a House 

 Wren "* divided his time between inspecting his brood in a 

 hollow stub at the foot of the bungalow steps, and sing- 

 ing his heart out, from the roof. The litdc "Rooties" or 

 Cinnamon Spine-tails"'' — absurdly Wren-like but in reality 

 Woodhewers which have deserted tree-trunks for reeds — • 

 showed us their homes, concealed in great untidy balls of 

 twigs. As they flit here and there through the bushes and 

 grasses, they let off a sound like a miniature rattle. 



The mornings and evenings, here as elsewhere in the 

 tropics, are the periods of greatest activity among birds and 

 other creatures. In the afternoon, before the Hoatzins 

 began to gather, great tarpon would play in the river, the 

 shower of drops scattered by their leaps sparkling like silver 

 in the slanting rays of the sun. The few in the lagoon are 

 of small size, but tarpon in the Abary reach a weight of 

 185 pounds. A swirling in the shallows near the landing shows 

 where an anaconda (Eimecles murimis) is stirring after his 

 day's rest. His mate, ten feet long, has just been shot after 

 having helped herself to the bungalow chickens — one each 

 night for a week, and serpent number two (whose size our 

 Arrawak Indian squaw cook places at a fabulous thirty feet 

 or more !) must soon pay the same penalty unless he changes 

 his diet. 



Toward dusk all the Swallows of the world — or so it 

 appears — fly past in loose bands or singly, northward 

 toward the eta bush to roost, hundreds and thousands of 

 them — Red-breasted, '^^ Banded,'^' Barn,''' Variegated "" and 

 Tree ''" Swallows with scores of the Gray-breasted Mar- 

 tins.''^ Then the fishers of the savanna appear, look- 



