Observations made in the Central Philippines. 625 
built in that way. The birds are quite abundant in the island, 
and there are probably many caves which the old man has not yet 
found. He is said to be the only one who dares enter them, others 
being deterred by stories of snakes, which are not all stories, for we 
passed, near the mouth of the second cave, the cast-skin of a snake 
eight or ten feet in length. There are also stories of a curious 
little black, hairy people, the Kama Kama, which are invisible at 
most times, and which inhabit these caves and live on the snails 
with which the island abounds. The guide pointed out great heaps 
of empty shells, far if the caves, as proofs of the existence of the 
Kama Kama, but they looked like shells which had been floated in 
by high water. 
The edible nest (swift) according to the guide, whose account 
was proved to be correct by our observations as far as they 
went, nests the year round, lays two small, white eggs, is 
about a month completing its nest, lays the eggs on the bird 
edible material of the nest, nests time after time in the same nest, 
adding to it each time. The young build beside the nest in which 
they were born, frequently attaching their nest to that of the 
parents, 
The only forest remaining in Guimaras was in the rough gorges 
and upon the rocky cliffs near the sea, the upper level of the interior 
of the island being sandy, and much of it in cultivation to sweet 
potatoes and Indian corn, and in the lower places to rice. The 
hills of Panay, all about Ilo Ilo, and as far up the mountains 
as we could see, showed no virgin forest, but only grassy slopes and 
bushy ravines, a poor outlook for our work. Whether the same 
conditions have worked like results elsewhere or not, there can be 
no doubt that the Indian method of cultivation has produced 
these grassy plains from an anciently heavily timbered country. 
They cultivate by cutting down the timber and burning it during 
the dry season, and then planting on the burned and blackened 
ground. One or two crops are raised before the wild growth gets 
too strong for their large knives, their only implement of cultiva- 
Som and then the timber grows again from the roots and sprouts 
left in the ground, and the cultivator cuts off another piéce of forest. 
After a few years, if the population is thick enough to demand it, 
the first piece, now grown up to brushwood twelve or fifteen feet 
> 
