61 
ZOOLOGICAL SOCIETY BULLETIN 
the delicate birds, and now that we have some 
three hundred specimens, lie hardly has time 
for his meals. Hummingbirds require very 
careful attention. They are not really difficult 
to keep in captivity, but any omission in their 
regime is fatal. Hummingbirds have to be 
caught in the morning and brought before mid¬ 
day. This gives the time to feed them suffici¬ 
ently before the night comes. If brought in 
the afternoon, they cannot take enough food to 
survive during the night and are found dead in 
the morning. When the catcher brings them in 
they generally look like corpses. Each of them 
is put into a small box cage, where is some of 
the usual mixture (Mellin’s Food, condensed 
milk and sugar) in special covered feeders with 
a small hole just allowing the bird to plunge 
its beak into the food. (Otherwise the feathers 
would become sticky with food and death would 
soon occur.) We have to catch each bird every 
ten minutes and plunge its beak into the food. 
Generally after two or three minutes the bird 
begins to drink. The effect of the food is won¬ 
derful and immediate; a bird which was lying 
on the bottom of the cage can be seen merrily 
buzzing a few minutes after he has fed. But 
he loses the strength with equal rapidity and 
before be shows signs of weakness he must be 
caught and fed again. Generally after six 
hours a hummingbird has realized that the tin 
pot of food is the equivalent in usefulness of a 
Hower, and comes on the wing to plunge his 
beak into the delicious cream. He feeds about 
every minute, taking little food at one time. I 
noticed that full-colored males are more difficult 
to accustom to the food and we often had to 
feed them by hand for twenty-four hours. 
The wonderful Topaz is the most difficult. It 
is very wild when first caught and will never 
feed the first day. The great difficulty in the 
tropics is to supply hummingbirds with always 
fresh food. The mixture soon becomes sour and 
is dangerous. It has to be replaced several 
times a day. Hummingbirds are so pugnacious 
that one cannot keep more than one in a cage. 
The average losses on caught hummingbirds, 
when properly attended to, are very slight and 
do not exceed ten per cent. 
One difficult part of my enterprise remains; 
it is bringing to France my collections without 
too many losses and I do not dare to think of 
what the j ourney will be! But when I have 
come back to my old Normandy home, where 
men have worked for five hundred years to make 
it safe and pleasant, and have continually tried 
to improve the natural beauty of the surround¬ 
ings, hummingbirds and tanagers will remind 
me of the charm of the South American wilder¬ 
ness, that men have not yet succeeded in 
touching. 
Nous tous, en France, qui ne nous contentons 
pas de travaux de Cabinet, mais essayons d’etu- 
dier la Nature vivante, nous avons applaudi, il 
y a six ans, a la fondation de la “Tropical Re¬ 
search Station.” Nous avons pris un vif in- 
teret aux recherches qui v ont ete poursuivies, 
et tellement apprecie les resultats obtenus que, 
cette annee meme, la Societe Nationale d’Ac- 
climitation de France a decerne a Mr. William 
Beebe sa Grande Medaille a l’effigie d’lsidore 
Goeffroy-Saint-Hilaire; depuis de soixante ans, 
cette recompense nous sert a rendre hommage 
a ceux qui, d’une facon partieuliere et remar- 
quable, ont eontribue a I’avancement des sci¬ 
ences naturelles. 
Aussi une visite a Kartabo presentait-elle 
pour moi un attrait exceptionel. L’idee, pour- 
tant flatteuse, que je m’etais faite de la Station, 
a ete largement depassee par la realite. Je suis 
vraiment emerveille qu’en pleine Foret Vierge, 
il ait ete possible d’etablir un laboratoire, d’y 
reunir des savants et des artistes, et de pro- 
ceder, sur place, a une etude complete de la Vie 
tropieale dans toutes ses manifestations. Rien 
n’y est laisse au hazard; pas un etre vivant 
n’est rencontre, qui ne soit examine a fond, sous 
tous les aspects, a tous les points de vue. Que 
de laboratoires europeens pourraient prendre 
exemple sur 1’esprit de methode et d’organisa- 
tion qui regne a Kartabo! 
Les Naturalistes du monde entier doivent 
etre reconnaissants a la New York Zoological 
Society d’avoir cree la “Tropical Research Sta¬ 
tion”; je souhaiterais que tous pussent venir la 
visiter; ils en reviendraient en emportant, avec 
la comprehension de la Vie Tropieale, l’admira- 
tion de ceux qui, infatigablement, travaillent 
dans la Jungle a en dechiffrer les passionnants 
mysteres. 
MARCH MAMMALS AT KARTABO* 
By William Beebe 
I N a tropical jungle,, as indeed in many other 
parts of the earth, birds and insects are 
the dominant types of animal life. Both 
in numbers and variety, brilliancy of coloring, 
prevailing sounds and adaptive radiation they 
are far ahead of all the other groups put to¬ 
gether. In such a relative summary at Kar¬ 
tabo, mammals (the group to which we our¬ 
selves belong), must be reckoned as seventh, 
preceded by birds, insects, fish, spiders, rep¬ 
tiles and amphibians. We realize that the age 
* Contribution No. Ill, Tropical Research Station. 
