IN A GUIANA FOREST.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 13637, 5 July 1906, Page 2

IN A GUIANA FOREST.

lly Alas M. Jackson -

We have received from Mr Alan M. Jackson, formerly on the engineering star!' of the Duncdin Drainage lioard, ami who for the past seven months has been assistant engineer of the (liiiana Hold Dredging Company, tht following interesting notes /jiving some account of the natural history of ihe region in which lie is located (British Guiana);—

Sunday is a lazy time for overseers and managers, but is busy enough for the niggers. There they are—dozwis of lliem— squatting at the rivers edge washing their clothes and mine. I wonder why it is that nigger,? never will wash dot lies like any civilised washerwoman, but. beat Ihem with a club as if there was a grievance lo be righted. Ah well, I really will have t > sew some buttons on soon as nails are getting scarce. This clearing is gelling rather hot by the way. "Hoy. fetch my prospect, knife." (This is the bushina.n's constant companion, a good 18in blade that, will peel a. yam or fell a, sapling.) There is a. refreshing look about the bush that seems inviting, and 1 expect an hour or two there will be better than stewing in a hammock! under a paper roof.

The trail up the river winds alon«r the rials that are covered in times of Hood, and jnet inside that wall of vegetation which! always fringes the river where t-]ie lesser trees and shrubs seem to jostile one another in their battle for light. lii the forest where the giant mora and greenbeart thrive, with their leaves and branches liigli fi|oft blotting out. the skjj", all is cool and quiet and dim. After an libur's walk even under this shady canopy it proves warmer than it seemed at first, so that a, rest is desirable, But what is this tiling moving right across the trade? Why, it looks like a. stream of leaves running along; and so it is, hut tho leaves are all in littlo pieces, and each piece on the back of a sturdy, hurrying little ant. There is a regular battalion of them—four, eight, twelve, twenty abreast at tho very least. All the loaves are carried on n little brown back, and they look for all tho world'like a tlcet of yachts with green sails. This is worth watching. Hullo! there's one chap without a leaf—why, he is biting the loaded one's heels: ho is if regular little " whipper in." Thero is another of the same kind shrewdly keeping Just behind a twig that crosses tho roiito, and nipping those burdened ones wlin show an inclination to halt at that obstruction or go round. No going round for tho 'cilshoy" ant; .his trail, qnito easily seen, is lis straight as an arrow. Lett's (seo vliero thoy are. going to. I silently pace along tho trail—one hundred, two hundred yards, but the army still marches ahead. This grows monotonous, besides I bad far rather seo where they come from; so, turning back, I pace again one, two, throe, four hundred yards, and still no sign of a. beginning as far as can he seen.

My word, that is a. beauty—why didn't I bring my net. A huge butterfly, with brilliant azure wings that scintilate and glisten as ho ripples tiirnugli Iho shafts of sunlight, floats by. Perhaps he will settle; I'll chase him anyway—there he goes straight for the river, and, like all the trees, for the sunlight. Hut look, there is some of that gorgeous streaming purple Mower growing just like Wisteria— if only it wasn't so ifTijii I should gather it, But there's a humming bird ; oh, what a beauty! He looks strange though. Ho does not appear to bo sitting on anything. Why, that blurr on each side must be his wings, goii\g so fast yon cannot see them. There goes his slender curved beak into » flower. Now I see Ins wings: he is living: now he is still again, with quivering wings resembling a puff of smoke'.

That reminds me, a whiff or two from tliis old black friend, with a nice clean log to lie on, would fit in most.luxuriously. A eoil of. pate blue smoke ascends: watching it seems half the pleasure. There's it ring; up it floats, thinning in the stillness higher and thinner and thinner and higher; now it looks like gauze, and now it is gone. But what win tlint- he hiyli' up there where the rinjj melted? Jt- is coming down: it. must he a squirrel. What lightning runs ho gives. Yes, it's u squirrel sure enough, of a bomiic, mottled grey, and fluffy like our roa. And what a brush! 1 jpiftjs I know some folk in New Zealand who would give something for a, boa made of a fur like that. Why didn't I bring a gun? Yes, why didn't 1? for there's a. snake. With all the horror of an Irishman or it New Zeahtnder 1 start up. Hold on, though j what's he tip to? He cannot reach me here, ami he has not even seen me. He is watching that poor 1 ittlo squirrel; there ho is, just .beneath, it, coiled, with: a foot, of slender neck up ready to strike. Too excited to admire the gently waving head I 'gave a quick stroke with the "bushman's companion" and the head is off! Oh, bother, a good four inches has gone oft' with the head. His skin would liavo been 6ft 6in with that piece added on, and well worth sending home. His body is black and shiny o;» the back and a bright yellow underneath, and very whippy in the form. Ho is a "Yakmitn," and that means a. hunter .I believe, but. my Dutch is a trilk, uncertain. It was not taugh tat Dunedin High School, yotl see. He wouldn't have done ine any harm, as he feeds only on frogs and rats and "Such small deer. - ' Hut. What about my friend the squirrel? There, he is, just »• moving dot mi the, blanch of tli'at greenheart, Vhich must bo a hundred and eighty feet from the ground at the very least. The grcenheart certainly is a king among trees.

Well, that snake has got to bo skinned somehow, and when ho is warm is the best time, I'm told. Ugh! it is worse than

an eel to handle, but the skim comes off pretty easily—rather like a wet stacking. It is five o'clock—time I got back to camp, as it always gels dark here about 6 o'clock, lioiore 1 reach the clearing it is dark. Hullo, who is the smoker come out- lo look for me. . Heastly insult that, but I'm sure I. saw him strike a match. Well, I must be a new chum after all: it is n firelly, and there's another- and another. But there's one, no two, three, six on. the ground. You greenhorn! those are glowworms. There's the. clearing at lust.

" Here hoy, get this skin tacked out on a board, and .ask the storeman for some arsenical soap, and rub it well in, dy'e hear?"