1894
March 23
Trinidad, B.W.I.
Caparo
  A clear, cool, fine day
  Off with Chapman in the early morning visiting the
concert grove of the Humming birds again. There were
only two birds there this morning but they were
"hard at it" and we watched them for a long time.
  On the way in I had two shots at Mot-mots but
missed them both. The hoo of this birds is singularly
Owl-like. In its flight, attitudes etc. it reminds me
most of a Cuckoo.
  I shot a big Cuckoo (Piaya cayana) in a tall tree
near where the path enters these woods and at the
river bank a large Swift and two Swallows (Stelgidopteryx).
After skinning these birds I went to work on
this journal which was three or four days behind
and which I have been forced to write very hastily.
  Now that I have finished with the past a word
as to the present. It is now sunset and I am
sitting alone on the river bank with the cacao grove
behind me and the edge of the forest walling in
the further bank of this narrow, winding, muddy little
stream. To the left is a clearing brilliantly lighted
by the slanting rays of the sun. All else is in
cool shadow. The trade wind has fallen and scarce a
breath of air rustles the leaves. Birds are calling on
every side. Now the peep-pee of Diplopteryx, next the
qu'est-ce-dit of Pitangus sulphuratus, next the sweet
silvery song of Thryothorus, next the caw of Thamnophilus