All the creatures of the forest cross and recross the track freely, even in front of an approaching train. Water-fowl, Sun-bitterns[24] and the weird-voiced Trumpeters[25] walk up and down, and flocks of Seedeaters[132] drift here and there, gleaning seed from between the rails. The Trumpeters were a great surprise to us, as this is the first instance of their being found north of the Orinoco River. One day we see the leaves part, and a long, low-shouldered reddish form slouches across before us, without even a glance at us, and we know it for the first South American puma (_Felis concolor_) which we have seen. Another “red lion,” as the natives called it, with two cubs, was seen not long before. Only the sloth is barred. He comes close to the endless swath; he wanders from tree to tree up and down, peering dully out across the track, but he cannot cross. The twenty-foot treeless embankment is as impregnable to him as a sheer wall of rock. With a weird cry he turns back and starts in another direction through the branches. [Illustration: FIG. 30. THE FATAL “MOTHER OF THE LAKE.”] We reach the lake long before the dew is dried and before the freshness of the dawn is dissipated. Hurrying over the planks and the temporary rails laid for the workman’s hand-cars, we push on a half-mile or more to the southward, where nothing hints of man’s proximity. To the north and west are irregular peaks running off into a blue and misty range—the foot-hills of the Spanish Main. To the south the high woods are close to us and tower high overhead, but even with the eye of yonder lofty, soaring Vulture we could see no mountains in that direction—nothing but flat, green miles of mangroves, stretching to the horizon over the immense delta of the Orinoco. The pitch lake itself is surrounded on all sides by dense forests, the front ranks of which are made up of the marvellously tall and graceful moriche palms. There is one oasis in this pitchy expanse—Parrot Island it may be called. To this shelter, guarded on all sides by soft, quaking pitch, Amazon Parrots come at dusk by hundreds, roosting there until the next morning. [Illustration: FIG. 31. WHITE-HEADED CHIMACHIMA HAWK AND ETA PALM.] Near the northern edge is the “mother of the lake,” just above the deep-hidden source of supply, where the pitch is always soft, and where no vegetation grows. It is a veritable pool of death, and nothing can enter it and live. The lizards and heavy-bodied insects which scamper over the rim are often clogged and drawn down to death. A jaguar, leaping after a Jacana, slipped in shortly before we came and made a terrible fight for life. Half blinded, its struggles carried it only farther outward, but fortunately the end came mercifully soon. [Illustration: FIG. 32. AMAZON PARROT ROOST, PITCH LAKE.]