CHAPTER IX. 



A FEW SUGGESTIONS. 



I THINK that I may say without egotism that I can sometimes 

 make a fair bird-skin, and the fact that others could do the same 

 was to me, at one time, nothing remarkable, but now I regard with 

 great respect the man who can go to the tropics and return with a 

 collection of good skins. 



Until we have experienced them ourselves, we do not realize the 

 difficulties that beset the collector in the tropics. Suppose that you 

 have come in at nightfall with ten or fifteen birds that you wish to 

 save. You have your supper, and then you begin to realize that 

 you are tired and sleepy, but still you start to work. You have a 

 wretched spluttering tallow-dip for light, and mosquitoes come in 

 clouds to harass you. However, you keep bravely on and finish 

 one good skin, then look at your watch. You have, if the bird is 

 a medium-sized one, been at work just twenty minutes; at this rate 

 you will be four or five hours longer. The prospect is too much for 

 you ; you make two or three more skins, then hang up the rest of 

 the birds in the coolest place that you can find, and say that you 

 will begin upon them at daybreak the next morning. When you 

 wake, you at once notice a peculiar smell ; you examine your birds ; 

 they are putrid, and must be thrown away at once. You still have 

 the skins left, and later you take a look at them. You find them 

 covered with thousands of little red ants, the skin of their feet and 

 their eyelids have already been eaten off, and many feathers have 

 been cut away, leaving unsightly bald patches. You take each skin, 

 blow and dust off the ants, clean them thoroughly, and replace them 



