Resting my camera for a moment against the buttress of a giant mora, a small brown bird flew out and I recognized another Wedge-billed Pygmy Woodhewer.[96] It flew to a sapling and peered at me around the side. When I did not move away it came nearer and voiced its disapproval by a five-syllabled cry, _chik-chik-chik-chik-chik!_ This made me suspicious and peering down a narrow crevice formed by a deep fold in the buttress I caught a glint of white, and finally made out three eggs, one of which seemed to be freshly broken. A safer or cosier place could not be imagined. The crevice was eighteen inches deep and only two inches wide, with the opening of the fold almost closed by a small dangling bush rope. The nest itself was only two feet above the ground. The eggs were pure white and were laid on a thin net-work of rootlets and fibres resting on the black mould which had collected in the crevice. The following day it took me two hours of hard work, cutting and sawing, to reach the nest, and when Milady spooned up nest and eggs, four good-sized scorpions came with them, unpleasant guests I should think! There were two eggs in the nest and a broken one on the ground outside which the parent had removed the night before. This egg had probably been broken by the hurried flight of the parent on the preceding day. The eggs were a broad oval in shape, dull white and both measured 20 by 16 mm. Four other pairs of birds were nesting on this side of the clearing, Yellow-winged Honey Creepers,[136] Jungle Wrens,[125] two pair of White-throated Robins,[127] and a Guiana Quail or Douraquara.[8] This last I found wholly by accident as I was watching a dragon-fly which had been injured by a small Flycatcher. Good-sized pieces were bitten out of the two hind wings and one of the others was doubled and broken. Yet the brave little insect was far from giving up and managed to fly slowly, albeit with a heavy slant to one side, the loose wing making a whizzing sound as it vibrated. I followed to see its ultimate fate. As it passed the end of a log a green lizard leaped from a leaf and seized the unfortunate insect in mid-air, thus typifying the _anlaga_ of bird flight. The lizard fell full length upon a rounded pile of dead leaves and like a bomb there shot forth the whirring form of the Quail, which scaled off between the trees. We found the Douraquara[8] had rocketted from a tunnel about a foot in length, made of twigs and dead leaves, which led to a round hidden nest cavity containing four white eggs, one of which was broken. On the following day the Quail had removed all trace of broken egg and shell. So completely was the nest a part of the jungle floor that never except by accident would we have discovered it.