Page Twenty-four 



IN THE FIELD 



Dr. Crainpton is in the Philii)[)ine Islands. 



Mr. Beebe, who is Director of the Tropical Research Station of tlic 

 New York Zoological Society in British Guiana, writes from Kartaho 

 that he has been having good weather and getting in some good collect- 

 ing. He adds: 



"Wheeler got i'A species of ants on one tree. My movie pictures are 

 coming out well, and we are doing good work in all directions." 



From Mr. Anthony, whose letters are always interesting, we hear: 

 " I have been getting a fine lot of specimens with prospects of bring- 

 ing back quite a large collection at the close of the trip. We work out 

 from a base, a mining camp here at Portovelo, and after each side trip 

 return here, pack oiu' specimens and get a new lot of supplies. Our 

 work is all in the mountains and indeed in Southern Ecuador it is diffi- 

 cult to find a spot that isn't in the mountains. The trails are very 

 steep, and we use mules, riding, and carrying our supi)lies on 

 pack saddles. Just now it is the dry season and the trails are firm and 

 hard but they go up so steeply that you wonder how they ever got the 

 trail to stay on the mountain-side at first. To climb 6,000 feet in six 

 hours is a usual practice, and to make matters worse some of the trails 

 are worn so deeply that they pass between high lianks, ten or fifteen 

 feet high, and are so narrow that a mule with a large pack often gets 

 stuck in the tight places and has to be shoved through. Sometimes the 

 trail winds along a slope where you can look down for 500 feet or more 

 almost at your feet, and once one of our mules fell off the trail where it 

 was so steep that he could have rolled on down into the river nearly 200 

 feet below, but he lodged against a tree and several of us got on a rope 

 and pulled him back up. 



"However it is worth all the effort it costs to get into these moun- 

 tains for there is much interesting life here. Mile upon mile of dense 

 tropical forest clothes the lower slopes, and the vegetation is of a wonder- 

 fully rich character. Ferns galore and palms make the forest unlike 

 any up north, and just now beautiful orchids, purple, yellow and white, 

 are in bloom, and are a common sight. Huge butterflies, brightly 

 colored birds and monk(\vs also add elements that are unknown in 

 northern woods. 



