420 Walter Goodfellow—Some Reminiscences of a Collector


my home for four years, only leaving it for a month during the worst

of the wet season once a year, which was the only time I heard my

own language spoken, and this in war time too, when I was yearning

for news from home of friends and relations at the War. Letters took

three to four months to reach me, and often newspapers failed to arrive

at all. Some letters written at this time arrived all together a year

after the War had ended, and when two of the writers had long been

killed.


After my return home I came across Conan Doyle’s Lost Continent ,

which gave a small map showing where this lost part was supposed

to be in South America. This was exactly more or less where Esperanza

stood, not far from the Rio Itenez, which divided us from the state

of Matto Cross, in Brazil.


I had thought this would be a wonderful field for birds, but in this

I was disappointed for birds were very seasonal here, and many species

seemed to stay but a short time with us ; besides I had met almost

all of them before in other parts of the Amazonian basin. We had

a long dry season and a very wet one, and it was only between these

two seasons, corresponding to spring, that many species with a few

exceptions were about. Two of these exceptions were a small Ground

Dove (Chamcepelia) and the Yellow-collared Macaw (A. auricollis), both

of which left before the dry season ended. Where they went to I have

no idea ; probably farther south. In the clearing were a number of

small water holes and some swampy ground never dry. It was to

these the Macaws came in their hundreds morning and evening, when

every small tree around the damp parts was literally covered with

them, wherever a foothold was to be had. The Doves were all over

the clearing and invaded the vicinity of my house, even at times

venturing inside. I kept a half dozen of the Macaws for a long time

but, shortly before I was due to come home, four of them escaped

while I had gone up to Concepcion, so it only left the two which I gave

to the Zoo, where one of them still lives at the time of writing. These,

I believe, are the only ones ever brought alive to Europe. It will be

seen by what I have said that this is not a rare bird where they come

from, but I do not know who but an hombre loco, as the Spaniards say,

would ever take the trouble to bring home live birds from such an



