Siz Weeks in Southern Mindanao. 291 
of bivalves; among them tree oysters, with fresh pieces of man- 
grove bark sticking to the valves, where they had chopped them 
loose with their knives. 
The woods being too far away to make general collecting easy 
from the city, after two or three days’ stay we embarked in a 
native outrigger boat, and after three hours of voyage were landed 
on the grand beach of Ayala, a little town fifteen miles from 
Zamboango to the north, where I had collected twelve years before. 
There being no house fitted for our use, we occupied with ‘the 
officials of the place the tribunal, a large building near the church, 
and serving for jail, court-house, town-house, and lodging-place for 
strangers. Coming up to the back side of the town and tribunal 
were the level rice fields, now flooded with water and just planted 
or being planted to rice. The woods had been cut back a good 
deal in the last few years, but we found the rice fields swarming 
with water birds, and concluded to stop for some weeks. The 
first trip to the fields produced eight or ten species of waders, and 
many more followed; sandpipes, snipes, plovers, rails and herons, 
allin great variety. Many of them were no doubt migrants from 
the northwest, but several were breeding, and no doubt residents. 
The population of the place seemed to be hunters by instinct, and 
as soon as they found that they could get grandes (the big old 
Spanish copper cents which makes the small change of the islands) 
for living things, we were besieged by an array of helpers, big 
and little. Morning, noon and night they were at our door, with 
shells, turtles, snakes, lizards, birds, and everything else they 
thought might tempt the coppers out of our pockets. The boys 
set snares for the birds about the flowers of the trees, and scoured 
the woods and fields with their bamboo blow guns, and brought in 
sun birds, forest thrushes, orioles, tailor birds, cuckoos, and even a 
number of small owls caught napping in the groves of second 
growth. Several old contraband guns were brought out, and with 
powder and shot advanced by us, some of the older hunters brought 
from the woods, back loads of great hornbills, forest pigeons and 
jungle fowl, with now and then a big-footed mound-builder bird. 
One little old man, skilled in woodcraft, set a large number of 
Th on the ground, and made us daily visits with his game. 
e most abundant ground inhabiting mammal seemed to be a — 
large spotted civet cat. One day he brought three of these, and 
