After a delicious shower-bath we slung our hammocks on the veranda and sat on the hillside in the moonlight for an hour or more, watching the night shift at work, one or two men guiding the stream beneath flickering arc-lights, others puddling the down rushing torrent. Just beneath us in the dark shadow of a bush lay the coolie night watchman, with the inscrutable face of his race, keeping watch over the long, snaky flume, at the bottom of which the quicksilver was ever engulfing the precious metal. Later we slept the dreamless hammock sleep of the tropics, lulled by the dull droning roar of the water dashing against the clay—a sound which echoed through the jungle and gained in volume until we drowsily knew we were listening to the howling of the red baboons. Even this invasion of man merged harmoniously with the sounds of the wilderness. LIFE ABOUT THE BUNGALOW. We remained at Hoorie just seven days—only long enough to begin to look beneath the surface and realize what a veritable wonderland it was for scientist or nature lover. On the last day of our stay we wrote in our journal; “Hoorie is a perfect health resort; temperature good[D]; no mosquitoes; food excellent; splendid place for laboratory work; interesting insect life superabundant; birds and lizards abundant; snakes rare; perai, electric eels and manatees in the creek; peccary, deer, red howlers, armadillos, sloths and ant-eaters within short distance of bungalow.” What more could be asked? The bungalow was a well-built house with wide veranda, perched on the cleared summit of a low hill sloping evenly in all directions; the thick bush and shrubby undergrowth beginning about one hundred feet down the hillside. We shall not attempt to describe or even mention the many varieties of creatures which haunted the clearing, but leaving these for our scientific reports, we shall speak only of those which are especially interesting. When one enters a vast forested wilderness such as this, and makes a good-sized clearing, the inmates of the forest are bound to be affected. The most timid ones flee at the first stroke of the axe; others, swayed by curiosity, return again and again to watch the interlopers. A third class, learning somehow of the new settlement, come post haste and make themselves at home. These are chiefly birds, which, seldom or never found living in the heart of the jungle, are as keen as Vultures to spy out a new clearing. They must follow the canoes and trail, else it is impossible to imagine how they learn of new outposts—whether a simple Indian hammock shelter and cassava field, or a great commercial undertaking such as this gold mine. To begin with the birds, the Hoorie clearing possessed two pairs of Blue,[143] three pairs of Palm,[144] and five pairs of Silverbeak[146] Tanagers, besides six Blue-backed Seedeaters.[131] None of these are forest birds and all nest in brushy places.