62 
ZOOLOGICAL SOCIETY BULLETIN 
TROPICAL RESEARCH STATION 
OF THE 
ZOOLOGICAL SOCIETY 
BRITISH GUIANA 
Contribution Nos. Ill , 112, 113 
LIVE BIRD COLLECTIONS IN FRENCH GUIANA* 
By M. Jean Delacoue 
President de la lif/ue Franqaise your la Protection des Oiseaux; President de la 
Section d’Ornithoioqie de la Societe d’Acclimatation; C.M.N.Y.Z.S.; C.M.A.O.U.; 
M.B.O.U.; F.Z.S., etc. 
(INTRODUCTORY NOTE: M. Delacour is well known as one of the leading 
aviculturists and ornithologists of the world, and a prominent official of the Societe 
Nationale d'Acclimatation de France. Before the Avar, on his beautiful estate 
and park at Villers-Bretonneux, he had as many as two thousand birds of about 
five hundred species, all living in aviaries or in semi-freedom. What the Germans 
did not destroy by shelling, they wrecked deliberately by hand, leaving not a 
single living creature. M. Delacour has now acquired a new Chateau with a park 
of sixty acres at Cleres, and for six months has been travelling in Venezuela, 
Trinidad and French Guiana, seeking neAV specimens to restock his collections. 
I have had the good fortune for the past week to have M. Delacour as a guest 
at the Research Station, and I have persuaded him to write a short article for the 
tropical research department of the Bulletin about his interesting work in the 
little known Colony of French Guiana. 
William Beebe, Kartabo, March 17th, 1922. 
O UR little steamer Antilles has just left 
the muddy waters of the Guyana coast, 
and now it is in the Maroni, between the 
far distant French and Dutch banks, all clad 
with mangroves and manicole palms; large yel¬ 
low and blue macaws fly over the river. 
What first strikes me in this Guyana river 
is the almost complete absence of life in the 
water or on the banks; a month before I was 
on the Apure in Venezuela, where thousands of 
huge crocodiles and salt-water dolphins, as well 
as clouds of shore-birds were to be seen every¬ 
where. 
We reach St. Lauren t-du-Maroni, whose 
name is synonymous with Hell in the minds of 
French subjects in the five parts of the world, 
—the Capital of the Penitentiary Administra¬ 
tion, which owns all the northern part of the 
Colony, and where all the convicts from France 
and French colonies land to begin their life of 
hard labour. I find St. Laurent very attractive, 
with its broad avenues shaded by large trees, 
well-kept grass lawns, and comfortable brick- 
built villas,—the official town of “la Peniten- 
tiare.” 
* Contribution No. 113, Tropical Research Station. 
The Director of the Administration has come 
to the shore to meet me,—a most kind and re¬ 
fined black Creole, whose help to me is capital 
in this Maroni district, where he is the absolute 
master. He gives me a spacious house with a 
large garden, and a score of convicts to take 
my luggage; this is a very important business, 
as apart from my many private cases and those 
of my secretary and assistant, F. Fooks, I carry 
through South America dozens of tins and boxes 
with food, cages, traps, dead collections, and 
over a hundred live animals and birds, collected 
in Venezuela! Everywhere in St. Laurent one 
sees convicts, clean-shaved, clad in white linen, 
with large hats that they make themselves of 
palm leaves. They are most useful in every 
way and one very soon forgets entirely that he 
is living among the worst six thousand men that 
France has produced in present days. 
In a few days, spacious aviaries and cages 
are built in my garden, a large gallery is turned 
into a bird room, another one into an elemen¬ 
tary laboratory, and we can begin to collect in 
the country. I have two convicts to help with 
the live collection, under Fook’s supervision. I 
discover that one of them comes from my very 
