When Stringer stepped out of our shelter and gave vent to that inhuman call signifying "food and plenty," I held my breath and listened. The air was hot, heavy, damp and oppressive--an almost tangible medium in which we were immersed from the throat downwards. Animal and insect life was silent and deathlike, but from the moisture-laden, luxurious foliage came the subdued murmur of at least one form of movement. _Drip! . . . Drip! . . . Drip! . . ._ As Stringer cautiously advanced, he carried in his left hand that sleep-inducing nozzle connected with the gas cylinder; whilst in his right hand he held a death-inducing automatic--in case there arose the vital question: "My life or yours?" At a distance of twenty or thirty feet from the cage he sat down on his haunches, raised his great anthropoid head to heaven, and let forth another and louder cry. There was no answer, save that eternal and infernal: _Drip! . . . Drip! . . . Drip! . . ._ A giant tree shook itself in a slight breeze which sprang up, and I saw a snake make its way stealthily across one corner of the clearing and disappear into the underbrush. Silence and stillness again. And then an answering call came from the depths of the jungle. Like a cry of some triumphant and bloodthirsty accomplishment, it rose slowly upwards and upwards until it reached a pæan of ecstacy and abandonment; then it sank into a low gurgle of animal contentment. Was it Gran'pa, or Dr. Croft, or another gorilla? Stringer turned his head and looked at me in a way which, in spite of his anthropoid appearance, was almost human. No doubt he was asking himself (and me), the same question. I shook my shaggy head and waddled out into the open. There, I emitted a cry very similar to the one that we had just heard. It was answered almost immediately, from two separate points in succession, and I knew at once that Gran'pa and Dr. Croft were now engaged in the same occupation as ourselves and that they were notifying us of the fact. Presently, we heard and sensed the vague stir of animal life. Birds alighted on near-by trees; distant and hidden twigs and branches cracked; a little curious-visaged monkey appeared on a tree-top and watched us alertly; a brilliantly colored parrot shrieked and whistled. The denizens of the forest were at last emerging from that temporary retirement occasioned by the advent of our party from the outside world. With only a couple of playful-looking gorillas in sight, they were no doubt feeling quite at home again.