and filched nesting material from the lower end, fraying it out very appreciably. Their nests were attached to the lesser stems of a dense clump of bamboo in the garden. This Swift was common on all the Guiana rivers, hawking with Swallows over the water. Seen on the wing it appears glossy black with a white throat and collar. [Illustration: FIG. 71. SIR EVERARD IM THURN’S HOUSE AT MORAWHANNA.] It was the height of the season of courtship of the Palm Tanagers[144] and they were noisy and bold. A caged female proved to be a source of great attraction and several wild ones kept coming to the cage. We trapped two and they made themselves at home within a few minutes. There was considerable variation, some being gray, almost a bluish gray, while in others the green was strongly dominant. The chickens and ducks were taken by two kinds of opossums, one, large, ill-smelling and living in the bamboos, and the other very small and rat-like. Game was abundant here and tapirs, Tinamous and Guans were shot for food. The mudflats were inhabited by a host of crabs; most of them exactly like our little fiddlers, while others were larger and blue or yellow in color. Sand-flies and mosquitoes were present in small numbers, the latter troublesome enough for hammock nets at night, but the worst pest hereabouts was the bête-rouge which abounded in the grass both at Mount Everard and here. Nowhere else did we suffer so much from the fiendish little beasts. Like sea-sickness or an earthquake, bête-rouge is a great leveller of mankind, like a common disaster doing more to make men “free and equal” than all the constitutions and doctrines ever signed. In a bête-rouge infested region the conversation is sooner or later sure to turn upon the subject of these little red mites. Everyone you meet has his or her particular pet remedy to prescribe. The subject under discussion may be the coolie immigration laws, or the proper scientific name for some species of orchid or who is to be the next Governor—but some sharp-eyed fellow sufferer is certain to detect the guilty look upon one’s face which translated into words would be “My ankles are devoured by bête-rouge!” and then the assembled company begins to discuss the topic of really vital interest. We tried _all_ the remedies—Scrubb’s ammonia, dry soap, wet salt, wet soda, alcohol, resinol ointment, chloroform camphor,—to little purpose beyond very temporary relief. Finally we reached the stage when good manners were thrown to the winds and every victim scratched at will, despite the fact that it eventually aggravated the trouble. There was developed an individuality in the method so that at long distances we were able to recognize one another by the characteristic motions of discomfort!