tropical birds in abundance one must go at least to South America; but I have yet to find, in a somewhat extended experience, any place where certain eminently characteristic tropical species are more abundant than we found them at this

camp on the Tamesi River distant less than four days from Chicago!

A BIRDLAND BABEL

We were awakened by the loud calls of flying parrots, not passing over at a great height, en route to some distant feeding-ground, as one usually sees them, but stopping, with much conversational chatter, to join scores which were breakfasting in the trees overhanging our tents. At once we recognized the "double yellow-head" (Amazona oratrix) of the bird stores, rated by dealers as second only to the gray, red-tailed African parrot in its power of speech, and second to none as a whistler. With it was a slightly smaller, red-capped parrot (.Imazona viridiginalis), which, whatever it may be in a cage, is vocal enough in nature. Parrakeets of two species, with darting, dove-like flight, shot through the clearing, uttering their sharp, rolling cry, or, entering a tree-top, disappeared with incom

prehensible completeness until, assured of the safety of their surroundings, they began slowly to move about in search of food.

Red-billed pigeons (Columba flavirosshouted their emphatic "hurrah," and the tris) nearly as large as our domestic bird, dainty little scaled doves filled in the gaps with their quaint put-a-coo, put-a-coo; ground doves mourned gently, if inconsolably, and the pygmy owl (Glaucidium) whistled with clock-like regularity from the top of a leafless tree-a perch which this diurnal, light-loving midget prefers.

Great-tailed grackles creaked, sniffled, whistled, choked, and rattled; queer little Mexican crows, looking not much larger than blackbirds, perched in flocks in the leafless trees, snoring and grunting; flycatchers (Myiozetetes texensis and Tyrannus melancholicus) twittered excitedly: Derby flycatchers (Pitangus) cried hip, hip, hurray: gold and black orioles. whistled like school-boys homeward bound; anis whined; golden - fronted woodpeckers coughed; and ever and again the big Mexican pileated woodpecker sprang his thumping, reverberating rattle with astonishing effect.

A DREAM COME TRUE

It was such a scene as one might well have dreamed of, but scarcely expect to find when waking; nor did it altogether fade with the rising sun. These birds were not only feeding, but living, near us, and when their early morning hunger was satisfied many of them were found to be nesting, or preparing to nest, within sight of our tent.

A ground dove sat calmly on her two white eggs in the heart of a small orange tree at the ranch-house door; a red-billed pigeon, for some reason dissatisfied with the site in which its nest was built, was moving it twig by twig to a new situation. in a limb above our tent; a pair of pileated woodpeckers had taken possession of a dead trunk about 150 feet from camp, making the entrance to their nest directly beneath a large projecting fungus, which served as an admirable hood to their doorway; yellow - headed parrots were prospecting for a homestead in a dead tree on the river shore, and appeared and disappeared in its hollow limbs in a manner which seemed to indicate they felt at home; while a pair of red-capped parrots were evidently much annoyed to find that a cavity which appeared to be acceptable was already occupied by a lizard about 2 feet in length, who refused to be dislodged, but continued to bask quietly at his threshold with, no doubt, irritating

calmness.

Three factors accounted for the abundance and familiarity of the birds about. our camp in the ranch-house clearing: First, the larger forest trees had been left standing and only the undergrowth cut out; second, many of these trees, locally known as "otaheite," were bearing fruit of which parrots and some other birds were particularly fond; third, the birds were not molested.

To see the species which required either undergrowth or wholly primeval conditions, it was necessary only to climb the corral fence, 200 yards away, and enter the forest on its farther side. The trees were not high, but the growth was dense, and in places the ground was covered with wild pines having leaves bordered by a series of strong hooks, which, set in both directions, were more productive of

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eloquence than progress when one attempted to leave the forest path.

BOLD AND TIMID BIRDS

Here, if one could avoid the big brown jays (Psilorhinus), which, with jerky flight and raucous calls, followed one with maddening persistence, he might find the copper-tailed trogon and hear its flickerlike coo or detect the elusive, echo-like hoot of the mot-mot; and in the early morning the air vibrated with the soft, conch-like cooing of the semi-terrestrial white fronted dove (Leptotilla), while chachalaccas rattled, woodhewers (Dendrornis) piped, wrens of several species called or sang from the lower growth, and overhead there were warblers, tanagers, and vireos, some on their way north, others preparing to nest.

The banks of the river were too high and too continuously wooded to be suitable for water-loving birds, and the river is memorable to us chiefly as a fly-way of the splendid Muscovy duck, wild ancestor of a much degraded barn-yard descendant.

No one lacked for occupation at Paso del Haba. Shiras hunted with camera by sunlight and flashlight, securing photographs of birds by day and of beasts by night, and left, no doubt, a more vivid and lasting impression on the minds of two natives who unwittingly sprang one of his flashlight camera-traps than even his dry plate recorded.*

The naturalists added to their store of notes and specimens, while the keen, discriminating ear of Fuertes led to the discovery of a surprising new species of oriole, possibly the ancestral form of our familiar orchard oriole.

ORNITHOLOGIST'S PARADISE

Given the same considerate host who made our stay at his home so care-free, and hence productive as well as enjoyable, and somewhat more stable governmental conditions than have lately prevailed in this vicinity, and I know of no place where an ornithologist might hope to learn more of the habits of many tropi

* See the article by Mr. Shiras in NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC MAGAZINE, July, 1913, "Wild animals that took their own pictures by day and by night," page 807.

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cal species concerning whose home lives we know as yet little or nothing. Of the 88 species recorded by us during the week of our stay, no less than 36 are tropical forms, which are here at, or near, the northern limit of their range.

This fact in distribution, together with the specimens to confirm it, filled our present wants, and we returned to Tampico to continue our reconnaissance in the tropical fauna among the water birds of the Tamiahua lagoon to the southward.

A canal which had lately been completed from the Panuco River to the northern end of the Tamiahua lagoon gave easy access to that large body of water. Having now to supply our own launch, several days were lost in overcoming the numberless obstacles which invariably confront the hurried traveler in the tropics, but the importance of actually starting induced us to leave Tampico at 3.30 in the afternoon of April 11 rather than wait until the following morning.

Sunset found us still in the canal and we were forced to camp for the night on the lately erected mud-bank which formed its shores-a site fully demonstrating the importance of a tent with a permanently attached water-proof floorcloth. There were a few ducks in the bordering mangrove swamps. Fuertes killed three blue-winged teal soon after we landed, and a pair of gadwalls, which took wing as he fired, were dropped, if not literally in our pot, at least in the fireplace.

The spot was a good one to leave, and we were off early in the morning on our run to the southern end of the lagoon. Great brown rail (Aramides), Muscovy ducks, and black-necked stilts were among the noteworthy birds about us, while an astonishing number of coots (Fulica) were found resting on the long jetty-like arms which carry the canal to deep water in the lagoon. With explosive, protesting cucks they pushed off into the water, forming, finally, a solid black raft seemingly several acres in extent. Along the shore there were a few canvasback, gadwall, and shovelers; but most of the ducks had evidently left for the north, and birds as a whole were far from common.

With anticipations of better things beyond, we puffed along as rapidly as a head wind and two towed row-boats laden with gasoline, provisions, and camp equipment would permit. Our objective point was the home of a certain Indian hunter whom Charles Sheldon had told me could give us all needed information about bird life in general and roseate spoonbills in particular; but it must be admitted that the fact I had forgotten the man's name and mislaid the notebook in which it was recorded rather clouded our immediate future.

However, when we landed on the eastern shore of the lagoon for the night we learned from a troop of small Indian boys, who gravely shook hands with each one of us as we stepped ashore, that a thatched hut on a near-by bluff was the home of the man we had been blindly seeking. "Maclodeo" was the name to which a dormant memory instantly responded.

A JUNGLE VISITING CARD

Maclodeo proved to be absent hunting alligators, but when, the following morning. I introduced myself to his wife as a friend of "el Americano Don Carlos" a flash of comprehension illumined her previously puzzled features, and hurrying into the dimness of her thatch she quickly returned with a small, still white and evidently precious bit of cardboard, on which was engraved "Charles Sheldon, Madison avenue, New York City," a treasured memento which completed the identification of Maclodeo!

Information now came readily, and we learned that not only spoonbills, but several other species of birds were nesting on a group of small islets about 10 miles farther south. In spite of our ardent desire to see these birds, our surroundings were too attractive to leave without at least a casual exploration.

The peninsula is here about 10 miles in width, and in place of a growth of acacias, cacti, and other xerophytic plants, such as characterize the coastal plain to the north and to the south, it is for the greater part covered with a forest of surprising luxuriance. The common occurrence of fresh water at a depth of not more than two feet indicates that

A BIRD PARADISE

If we had suddenly opened the door of an overcrowded hen-house and thrown a bomb within, the change could not have been greater or the effect more surprising. Hundreds of birds which had been quietly resting at mid-day, with squawks of alarm, sprang into the air, and for a moment we were dazed by the confusion about us. But among the numberless herons of several species we could see dozens of delicately colored pink forms, while in nearly every tree was one or more nests holding young nearly as large and as pink as the parents which had just left them. We had at last reached the home of the spoonbill (see pp. 548-550).

Further exploration revealed a surprising number of birds on the island. There were Louisiana and little blue herons in great abundance, a few reddish and American egrets, black-crowned and little green herons, wood ibis and black-necked stilts, snowy banks of white ibis, and probably 200 pairs of roseate spoonbills. Nearly all were nesting, and it was ob

Photo by Frank M. Chapman

vious that we had before us an unusual opportunity to record photographically, both with motion film and fixed plate cameras, the appearance and habits of some little-known birds.

We first directed our attention toward

the spoonbills, the most difficult, as well as the most valuable, subjects before us. Satisfactory studies could not be made from below, and the trees were generally too small to furnish support at the desired height, and before a proper location was found and the umbrella blind and

cinematograph placed in position our strength, if not patience, was fully spent.

SACRIFICED TO FASHION

The odor from the decaying bodies of white egrets which, stripped of their plumes by hunters, had been thrown into the semi-liquid mud of the rookery, of their dead young in the nests above and water below, of the fragments of food and sundry débris of a great gathering of birds, the extreme heat-the mercury reached 99°—and the abundance of mos