BY C. WILLIAM BEEBE THE BIRD, ITS FORM AND FUNCTION With colored Frontispiece and 371 Illustrations, chiefly photographed from Life by the Author. _American Nature Series._ New York: Henry Holt and Company. 8vo. $3.50 net. THE LOG OF THE SUN A Chronicle of Nature’s Year. With fifty-two full-page illustrations by Walter King Stone, and numerous Vignettes and photographs from Life. New York: Henry Holt and Company. 8vo., full gilt. $6.00 net. TWO BIRD-LOVERS IN MEXICO Illustrated with photographs from Life taken by the Author. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company. 8vo. $3.00 net. OUR SEARCH FOR A WILDERNESS [Illustration: (_Frontispiece_) IN THE SOUTH AMERICAN WILDERNESS.] OUR SEARCH FOR A WILDERNESS AN ACCOUNT OF TWO ORNITHOLOGICAL EXPEDITIONS TO VENEZUELA AND TO BRITISH GUIANA BY MARY BLAIR BEEBE AND C. WILLIAM BEEBE _Curator of Ornithology in the New York Zoölogical Park; Fellow of the New York Academy of Sciences; Member of the American Ornithologists’ Union and Corresponding Member of the London Zoölogical Society_ _ILLUSTRATED WITH PHOTOGRAPHS FROM LIFE TAKEN BY THE AUTHORS_ [Illustration] NEW YORK HENRY HOLT AND COMPANY 1910 COPYRIGHT, 1910, BY HENRY HOLT AND COMPANY _Published April, 1910_ Stanhope Press F. H. GILSON COMPANY BOSTON, U.S.A. To JUDGE AND MRS. ROGER A. PRYOR With the deepest affection and admiration of their Granddaughter MARY BLAIR BEEBE and of C. WILLIAM BEEBE PREFACE. In the following pages we have set down the tale of two searches for a wilderness. These two private expeditions were undertaken for the purpose of learning something about the birds and other wild creatures of countries further south than any we had yet visited. Both trips were successful; for the regions we explored were wilderness wonderlands,—full of beauty, abounding in the romance which ever enhances wild creatures and wild men, and they were part of the great zoölogical “dark continent” which we hope to devote our lives to studying. On our first search the collecting of live birds was incidental, although we brought back forty specimens of fourteen species.