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Jungle Peace, William Beebe, Curator of Birds, New York Zoological Park and 

 director of Tropical Research Station, 297 pages, 16 full-page illustra- 

 tions, Henry Holt & Co. 



Mr. Beebe has long been known as a writer about birds and has recently 

 been making for himself a larger audience through his account of the life in 

 the South American wilderness, published in the Atlantic Monthly. These 

 articles are now gathered and published making a charming volume, Jungle 

 Peace. As director of the Tropical Research Station in British Guiana, Mr. 

 Beebe has found opportunity for studying the wilderness and its inhabitants 

 in a more leisurely and thorough way than would be possible to the mere 

 explorer. The book begins with a pleasant account of the voyage to Guiana 

 with its stops at several islands. It is difficult to decide which of the following 

 chapters is most interesting. At first we thought that it was Hoatzins at 

 Home, a graphic account of the way these birds which have retained their 

 reptile characteristics climb with hands and feet or dive in the river. Then 

 we decided that the chapter on Army Ants was still more exciting. The 

 team work of these little creatures is surely wonderful: "Here, then, were 

 scores of ants scrambling up the steep uneven sides, over ground which they 

 had never explored, with unknown obstacles confronting them at every step. 

 To the eye they were ants of assorted sizes, but as they advanced, numbers 

 fell out here and there and remained behind. This mob consisted of potential 

 corduroy, rope-bridges, props, hand-rails, lattices, screens, fillers, stiles, 

 ladders, and other unnamable adjuncts to the successful scaling of these 

 apparently impregnable cliffs. If a stratum of hard sand appeared, on which 

 no impression could be made, a line of ants strung themselves out, each 

 elaborately fixing himself fast by means of jaws and feet. From that moment 

 his feverish activity left him: he became a fixture a single unit of a swaying 

 bridge over a chasm ; a beam, an organic plank, over which his fellows tramped 

 by hundreds, some empty, some heavily laden. If a sudden ascent had to 

 be made, one ant joined himself to others to form a hanging ladder, up which 

 the columns climbed, partly braced against the sandy wall." 



However, on the whole, the chapter, Jungle Night, is the one reread most 

 often. Note this descrifption: "Close to my face, so near that it startled me 

 for a moment, over the curved length of a long narrow caladium leaf, there 

 came suddenly two brilliant lights. Steadily they moved onward, coming 

 up into view for all the world like two tiny headlights of a motor-car. They 

 passed, and the broadside view of this great elater was still absurdly like 

 the profile of a miniature tonneau with the top down. I laughingly thought 

 to myself how perfect the illusion would be if a red tail-light should be shown, 

 when to my amazement a rosy red light flashed out behind, and my bewildered 

 eyes all but distinguished a number! Naught but a tropical forest could 

 present such contrasts in such rapid succession as the poor-me-one and this 

 parody of man's invention." 



In reading this book one is always impressed with the fact that Mr. Beebe 

 has the use of all his senses, especially that of smell, surely a very important 

 asset to the naturalist. Jungle Peace is full of interest to the Nature lover 

 from cover to cover and we hope that Mr. Beebe will continue to write of 

 his jungle experiences. 



46 



PRESS OF W. F. HUMPHRF.Y, GENEVA, N. Y. 



