The abundance of bird-life, and also the variety, found in the lowland forest of British Guiana is bewildering, even to the seasoned field-observer; and nowhere in all South America are the feathered folk clothed in more brilliant and gorgeous colors. Evolution, it seems, has run riot in almost every conceivable direction in an effort to provide each species with some special color or characteristic that might enhance its beauty or better suit it to compete successfully with its hosts of neighbors. Thus we find the king-tody, a species of small flycatcher that preys upon insects. The body of the bird is inconspicuously colored, but the head is adorned with a crest of the most vivid scarlet feathers. As the bird sits quietly upon some low perch, the crest is depressed and invisible; then suddenly the flaming crown is erected and spread in fan-shaped formation, when it resembles a brilliant flower newly burst into bloom. Is it not possible that this flashing bit of color may attract some passing insect, which instead of finding nectar meets destruction? However, I do not believe that the survival of every species is dependent upon some one particular patch of color or exotic appendage which it may possess. It does not seem to me possible, for instance, that one species of humming-bird owes its existence to a green throat-patch, or another of similar size and habits to a red or blue one; nor that one bird of paradise persists because it has curious, long appendages on its head or shoulders while a second one may have similar ones in its tail; but rather does it show that evolution tries many experiments. Each animate thing is full of latent buds, it would seem, any one of which might break out at any time, prompted by an impulse or conditions of which we know nothing. If the result of such newly acquired variation is beneficial, the species would naturally persist; if injurious, it would result in extermination; if indifferent (neither harmful nor of value) it would have no effect one way or the other, and might still be retained. This latter, I believe, has occurred in a number of instances.