We drifted silently along, by the impetus of a touch of the paddle on a passing trunk. Orchids were in blossom, and ferns, mosses and lichens ran riot in orange, brown and ivory patches on the tree-trunks. Muricots and the fierce perai were abundant here, and now and then some fish broke water, throwing rings of light into the shadowy places. Spiders, ants and a host of other wingless insects were crawling on many of the trunks, made captive by the flood. Their inability to walk on the water was evident when we knocked some of them off, so they must have lived on their island trees for the last year, the time of existence of the dam. The spiders were legion in species, hardly two alike, from minute ones, shaped like nothing else under heaven, with relatively enormous hooks and thorns on their brightly colored abdomens, to giant tarantulas, who stood up and threatened us before beating a dignified retreat. [Illustration: FIG. 87. THE DROWNED FOREST.] The increase of water had attracted many water-loving birds, and great Rufous Kingfishers[67] swung past us, strong-winged, beautiful birds, carrying on their business of life in a virile, unhesitating way. Between the trunks flashed the White-banded Swallows[118] now hovering before a trunk and snatching a spider, now dipping at full speed for a floating gnat. A hollow rattling drew our attention upward, and there, gazing intently down at us, was a splendid Woodpecker—the Guiana Ivory-bill,[89] close kin to our Ivory-bill of the Florida swamps. Imagine a big Woodpecker with dark brown back, wings and tail, while the long erect crest, head, neck and breast are bright scarlet, shading into rich rufous on the under parts! Such a beauty looked down at us, and then without sign of fear dived into a hole. The Indians, passing several times a day, with loads of cord wood in their ballyhoos or flat-bottomed boats, were familiar with the Woodpecker and asserted that the bird had no mate. It was a male and although we visited the place several times no female ever appeared. The dead tree which held the nest was called Aramaca by the Indians, and was about a foot and a half in diameter, with the entrance not less than sixty feet above the water. A living tree like it on the bank near by had obtuse entire leaves and large, brown, slightly curved pods. The trunk was rotten, especially at the water line, and as it could not have remained standing much longer, we decided to investigate the home of this little-known bird.