ants.  He at first thought that the fledglings had been devoured, but he soon saw the parents, only about thirty yards off, with food in their beaks.  They were engaged in entering a dense part of the jungle, coming out again without food in their beaks, and soon reappearing once more with food.  Miller never found their new nests, but their actions left him certain that they were feeding their young, which they must have themselves removed from the old nest.  These ant-wrens hover in front of and over the columns of foraging ants, feeding not only on the other insects aroused by the ants, but on the ants themselves.  This fact has been doubted; but Miller has shot them with the ants in their bills and in their stomachs.  Dragon-flies, in numbers, often hover over the columns, darting down at them; Miller could not be certain he had seen them actually seizing the ants, but this was his belief.  I have myself seen these ants plunder a nest of the dangerous and highly aggressive wasps, while the wasps buzzed about in great excitement, but seemed unable effectively to retaliate.  I have also seen them clear a sapling tenanted by their kinsmen, the poisonous red ants, or fire-ants; the fire-ants fought and I have no doubt injured or killed some of their swarming and active black foes; but the latter quickly did away with them.  I have only come across black foraging ants; but there are red species.  They attack human beings precisely as they attack all animals, and precipitate flight is the only resort.

Around our camp here butterflies of gorgeous coloring swarmed, and there were many fungi as delicately shaped and tinted as flowers.  The scents in the woods were wonderful.  There were many whippoorwills, or rather Brazilian birds related to them; they uttered at intervals through the night a succession of notes suggesting both those of our whippoorwill and those of our big chuck-will’s-widow of the Gulf States, but not identical with either.  There were other birds which were nearly akin to familiar birds of the United States:  a dull-colored catbird, a dull-colored robin, and a sparrow belonging to the same genus as our common song-sparrow and sweetheart sparrow; Miller had heard this sparrow singing by day and night, fourteen thousand feet up on the Andes, and its song suggested the songs of both of our sparrows.  There were doves and woodpeckers of various species.  Other birds bore no resemblance to any of ours.  One honey-creeper was a perfect little gem, with plumage that was black, purple, and turquoise, and brilliant scarlet feet.  Two of the birds which Cherrie and Miller procured were of extraordinary nesting habits.  One, a nunlet, in shape resembles a short-tailed bluebird.  It is plumbeous, with a fulvous belly and white tail coverts.  It is a stupid little bird, and does not like to fly away even when shot at.  It catches its prey and ordinarily acts like a rather dull flycatcher, perching on some dead tree, swooping on insects and