Evening Star Newspaper, July 29, 1923, Page 54

a Beast The Way of a Man in T: ose Life BY M. L. C. PICKTHALL, and the Way of a Maid Who Writes of ences Was Brought Into Contact With His. LL day the launch had steam- ed north through the sea- channels. All day the bull had stood in the bows, roped %0 a trebly lashed cross-timber as to & yoke, and the islands had. re- sounded to hls angry voice. Some- times he had strained in a fury against the ropes till ‘the timbers groaned. Then Lennan turned from the rall and laid a hand on the thick, reddish curls between the horns. ‘The bull's eyes rolled sidelong to see fhis man who did not fear him. He blew through his nostrils and was still. The launch-hands looked from Len- nan to the bull, spat, and said, ““There's two of them. Lennan's hair grew in thick, red- dish tufts low ever his eyes, which were widely set, dark and of a slow, challenging stare. His shoulders were mighty, he moved deliberately, massively graceful. Men felt in him some smoldering power. They were afrafd of him. He had never had a friend. When evening split a vellow flame in the gray fathoms under the launch’s forefoot, she turned to her harbor. Lennan saw a wharf, a shed and some log booms grow toward them, gradually becoming visible out of the substance of the forest. Some of them sald to him, taken over Macey's place?” That bull yours?" Yes. “Well, him, sure. The bull was to be landed first. When the tug tied up to the wharf, Lennan began to cut the lashings which had captived all that strength. Men watched in sllence, alert to scat- ter. There was no sound but the sharp which-which of the knife among taut ropes. The bull was motionless. But as the last rope fell, suddeniy and mon- strously agile, he wheeled from the timber. Lennan went sprawling on the deck. The beast stood an instant, breathing flercely of freedom. The tawny sunset clung to his tawny side; he was like a bull of brass. Then he reared at the rail, his great bulk rushed through the air, crashed into the sea. A moment, and his head horned and curled, centered a fume of surf as he swam to shore. “He's got away on you,” breathed the men clustered in a minute along the rail. “You there'll be trouble landin’ * oo x ENNAN stood up. His face was reddened, his eves had lighted formidable fires. He strode to the side. Where the bull had plunged, he plunged. He began to swim and strokes that lifted him half-clear of the water. “Ah-h-h* men. Lennan gained. He came up with the bull, who swerved from him, snorting heavily. Lennan followed. His hand shot out, pressing on the ringed nose. The bull went under, and Lennan followed, holding him there. When the beast rose, he was choking and blinded. \He turned; only to meet that grip. The sea frothed around the mighty struggle, and an endless ring of gold ran out from it to meet the sunset. The bull's horns had ripped Len- nan's shirt to the belt; his tanned body was yellow in the yellow light. It seemed that in the trouble of golden foam, a man of brass fought with a brazen bull.” “Ah-h-h!" sighed deck. “He's done.” The tide was setting in. The bull felt rock under his hoofs and dragged his bulk clear of the sea. Half- drowned, he had no more will to fight; he smashed through the shallows to the dry land. Lennan splashed alongside, one hand fast in the nose-ring. The bull looked sidelong at him, blowing from his nostrils a bitter spume. Lennan called back to the launch, “Leave my stuff on the wharf, and I'll fetch it up.” The men were silent till one said, told you there was two of them. Then they began to unload the rest of the cargo. Following the trall to Macey’s, Len- nan and the bull went on into a deep twilight of cedars. They were brazen no more. They moved like huge im- ponderable shadows, shouldering the boughs. o The trall was a mere tunnel through old slashings. They climbed steadily, leaving the sea. They were wet from the sea, and now ‘the trees began to spray them with dew. A cold wind breathed on them from Invisible snow peaks. The bull moaned rumblingly. Behind Macey's place a mountain rose, covered with young' burned for- est. When they came here, there were stars among the trees on the top, but the early night was clear and green. Lennan could discern half-hearted land, warp fences and a garden, all blurred with sword-fern and salmonberry. He looked for the log house that was to be his home. He stopped. He had expected no welcome, but some one was there. A woman stood on the porch, plck- ing roses from a climber that stras- gled over the door. They were white roses. Little was visible but her hands, moving among them. * ok ok X sighed the watching the men on Lennan and the bull walted, ifcred- 1bly stil. ‘When her hands were full, she turn- ©d. She had not seen Lennan. Yet now, advancing a little, she sald clearly, “Is that you, my wearest?" Lennan stood motionless. The soft voice went on, with a little laugh, “I've waited so long for you. Now you're come, say, Tm glad to be home.’ “I'm glad to be home,” sald Len- nan. In a moment the bull lowered his head, bellowed thunderously. She had been utterly stili, staring and dum! aaly ber hands had opened and let the flowers fall. Lennan, moving toward her out of the night, guessed the ‘white disk of her face sharpened by black panic. Some inner apprehen- ston, rather than light, showed them to each other. Then. she was gone. Lennan listened to her flight, like the fiight of a bird, beating away into the Sorest. Agaln the bull challenged. Lennan led him to a shed and heaped before him some of the hay Macey had left. In the morning Lennan fetched- up his supp! ‘Then he began to build a mighty corral for the bull. It took him & leng while to cut the timber Sowshi®y After~that he-m: house. He could not do much with the land that year. So he found work at a mill ten miles off, and walked In twice weekly to care for the bull Otherwise the bull was alone with his heap of hay. 5 Eve, lying awake at night, would hear his great voice rolling among the hills, summoning the herd four hundred miles out of call. Behind her shut-eyelids she would see pic- tures _of the bull pacing his corral and challenging the solitude he could not understand. She thought. “Per- haps,I understand because I'm lonely, to”, 7 She would hear in her sleep another voice. “I'm glad to be home . . ." Then, waking, she would hide her { — | face from the night itself, whisper- | ing, “But he couldn't see me! He'll never know who it wa She lived with her married sister; she had nowhere else to live without loneliness. Her brother-in-law liked to tease her. He sald once, “You've had to quit your playin’ up at Mac place.” “Yes,” agreed Eve stilly. “I bet you! No stealin’ with the new owner around.” “What's his name?” asked Eve. “Lennan. A great bull-buck of a feller, with red in his eves. The boys llet him alone. He's marked ‘Dan- ge Eve thought of the man and the bull up there by the mountain— formidable, solitary. She confused them in her dreams. It was Lennan she saw pacing the corral and calling, deep-throated, to the night. Once she woke herself with a cry on her own lips. That night she slept no more. She dreaded to see Lennan; though he could not know. In that small community she could not avoid him for long. She met him at the store, on the trail, waiting for mail on the wharf. He passed her without a sign of recognition, always with his suggestion of something menacing and allen, always alone. But when she had passed she was aware of his steady regard . . . She told herself, “He couldn’t have ‘seen me.” flowers * ok *x * HE forerunning rains came early, deluged the world for a week, and passed in a roll of thunder and a double rainbow over Macey’s place. The forest sucked the wet audibly, the streams ran full. Plants put forth hurried leaves, rocks greened into a lace of little ferns, quail ran and piped by the raw logs of the bull's corral. | 1¢ was like another spring. Then the' clouds gathered again, coming up out of the sea. The weather broke again; and that day Eve must carry a message to a settler who lived across the moun- tain. Returning, from the burnt height behind Macey's place, she saw the gray clouds drop lances suddenly to the ocean. She ran, but the rains were quicker. They struck the shore, came inland with a sound of tram- pling, of drums. The forest bowed. Wind and rain.struck on her to- gether; in a moment the trail ran fluid under her feet; she battled as if with the wings of -kgplacable angels. Breathless, she slipped on a stone and fell. She was sodden; her cjothes dragged on her. Her 1oosened hair covered her eyes. With a small, hum- ble sound of distress, she tried to rise against the rain. Something light-footed yet ponder- ous approached her. .She heard the rain beat on another body. For an instant she visioned a mist of rain spraying from the bull's shoulders, and cowered. Then she knew it was Lennan in an’ollskin coat. He sald nothing. He stopped and lifted her, and that ease awed her. He carried her silently to the house and set her down In' an old chalr just in- slde the door. Bhe cleared the drowned hair from her eyes. She saw a square of gray glitter, and ‘roses above, hang- ing heavily. Outside was all a roar and' a shining of rain. She was in an islet of such quiet she could hear her clothes dripping on the floor. Her breath stilled. The silence became an oppression. She looked up at last into Lennan's face. Then her pulses "raced, hammering shame. For she saw that he khew her. Everything elge In a moment was for- gotten and out of mind between them. They . might have been 1lsled In their little silence on another star, ° . Lennah stared at her heavily, his head | lowered, his shoulders ‘swinging & little. He sald, “You ain’t been for more roses.” Eve's lips moved, but no sound came. He came a pace nearer to her. He €ald, and she knew that as he sald it he became formidable, “Tell me, who ‘Was you waiting for at my place, that night I came home?” “No one. He put out his band, swept her rough- 1y to her feet. “Don't lie to me,” he sald. Eve was silent, She lifted her hands and covered her face. OQutside, the bull sent a sudden thunder into the rain. Lennan laughed on the same note. He took her into his arms. She gasped, feoling his intolerable strength inclose her, Ho sald in her ear, “ won'tel b a8 well-for yout She grew cold and still as if she died. Lennan turned her face up to his own. y ‘Then he too grew still. For that face was wet with tears. Presently he released her. He stood away from her. Eve waited, but there came no word, no sound. And without looking at him, she walked steadlly out of the house, under the hammered roses and away into 'the rain’ From the corral the bull watched her, head low- ered, shoulders swinging a little, as it ready to charge something that had hurt him. She walked steadily home. * Kk K HE did not leave her own home for a week. The rain was heavy enough for her excuse. Later, men began to come in Wwith stories of the great rain: how such a dam was flooding already, such a val- ey under water and & washout on the line. One said, “There'll be landslips on the mountain after the fire.” Eve's brother-in-law said: why Macey quit. You goin' the new feller? o one, it seemed, knew Lennan well enough to warn him. Those days “That's to warn Eve went silent about | the house. She was hardly consclous what her own thoughts were, but sometimes she sald it can't last this way. It can't.” Then one night she woke and knew the rain had stopped. She left her bed and went to the window. The forest was black under the stars. Only the mountain behind Macey's was covered with a clinging cloud. It was the one white thing in the dark night, the one mystery where the stars saw eveything clear. It seemed there for a purpose, a concealment of some hushed business of the night and the hill. In a moment, ! in the beat of a pulse, Eve was afraid She struck a match and looked at the little clock on the homemade bu- reau. It was two o'clock. Through the thin partition where the others slept a child stirred and cried drows- ily. Eve instantly blew out the match and dressed herself in the dark. It never occurred to her to waken her sister. Lonely all her life, she must be lonely in its supreme hour. She left without wakening any one. She turned up the trail to Macey" place, almost running. She felt con- fusedly that she had very little time. * * She was not thinking clearly; ehe was past that—perhaps above it. If she could have expressed herself, she would have prayed that her flesh might break into wings, so that she might be in time. The silence was unbroken. It was as if that white cloud smothered all the normal noises of a forest night. It rose in a glimmering mound at the head of the trall. The trees were spiked against it as if it were a moon. It drew all the light there was. It Grew Eve, as If a wind blew toward it and she were & leaf on the wind. She was o high now that the sea breathed on her across the forest and the stars were near; climbing, climb- ing to Macey’s place; climbing to Lennan. * * * Then she heard a stir. She listened. There was silence on the mouatain, in the cloud. But a stone slid near her, something coughed in the sea-damp, a hoof rang on rock. The deef were going past her, going down .to the shore. The deer were leaving the mountain. She struck her hands on her heart, and climbed and climbed. Here was Macey's old clearing. Here the fleld. There the great log fence of the bull's,corral, a darkness in the dark, The anchored cloud towered over her. There—in the shadow of the cloud, under the hill—was the house. Dark. * * * She flung out her hands and began to run. A rotted rose struck her in the face like a ball of paper, broke, and dashed rain into her eyes. There was the door, shut.. She beat on it with her hands and shouted. There was no.an- swer. She flung it open and ran in. She knew instantly that the house was empty, that Lennan_ was not there. But she went from wall to wall, grop- ing, by the glimmer of the cloud. He was not there. He was at the shingle-mill. She turmed irresolutely and faltered toward the door. A faint shudder crawied through the timbers of the house. Eve's eyes stared, her 'hands were over Her ears. For that shudder was a sound, only it was too large for the hearing. It be- came a wave that broke on her and rocked the house like a ship. It be- came a weight that crushed her to the floor. She lay there, dazed. She thought it was the cloud had fallen. She moaned, *Lift it off me. It's so white. * ¥ % X ‘WHILE later she lifted her head. She knew what had happened. She was not afraid any more. She felt that she would never again be afrald of anything in the world; so had her spirit grown. 4 She went to the door, surprised to find herself staggering with nervous weakness, The house was not touch- ed. The edge of the landslip had swept past it. -~ The clearing was heaped with wreckage as if a tide had been there. The sharp black angle of the corral was a huddle of sticks and rocks.- Eve struggled to- lward the corral through shallow mud | the |after a high tide. and qulvering rubbish and entered it, After a while she saw the bull.” He ‘was pressed against the fence nearest the house. His head was lowered as i he would charge her. But she was no longer afraid. Pity had become so deep It was strength. She could dis- cern his sides heaving, his breath steamed whitely in the chill. Eve said, with a kind of surprise, “Why, he's scared!” & She laid her hand on his head where the stiff red curls were wet with dew. He rumbled in his throat, and crowd- ed toward her gently, “Yes,” she sald, “there may be another slide. You better come along with me.” She threw her arm over the great neck, and he followed her with low- ered head, snorting. The touch of the damp hide was pleasant to her, and the mighty warmth beneath it They went down the trall together. To one side lay the tract of the land- slip, as 1t a plough had passed over slopes. The trail was strewn with wreck, as foam strews a beach The bull trod down the earth, crashed through the scat- tered saplings, and Eve followed in the track he made. They went by a wider spread of earth, a raw wound plowed bare, The starlight shone on it as peacefully as if it had been there always. Sudden- 1y the bull stopped. lowered his head, and breathed rumblingly at some- thing which lay there, half buried in soil, & few yards from the trail. It was the body of a man. Eve waited. The man raised to her a. chalk-white, furrowed f: she knew it was Lennan. ‘Without speaking, he gazed at her; heavily, menacingly. But she was done with being afrald. She moved toward him. And then he shouted at her, “Keep back.” “What am I to do?" she said. “I don’t know. Don't step off the trail. It's soft here. Like mud. You'd sink, too.” “Are you hurt bad?" “I don't think so. But it caught me. I can't get free. 1 was walkin’ in late. To feed the bull. It caught me."” * Kk * X 1S words came in furlous jerks. He was buried to the lower ribs. He sank his head on his arms a minute. He was exhausted, beaten. He said again, “I can't get away,” and strugsled, panting till his breath shone white in the chill. He beat wildly with his hands at the soft, Fa |clogging, overwhelming stuff that had rolled him here, eatrapped him 50 that his strength was useless. E thought, with a kind of wonder, “Why, he's scared.” said, “Have vou a rope?” “A Dit of one,” answered Lennan sullenly. “I been tryin' to cast a loop over a rock or a stump, but it's too short.” “Throw it to me,” said Eve, * your knife, if you can get it.” He threw her the rope. He man- aged to dig his knife out of his belt |and threw her that. He said uncer- tainly, “Each time I move, it gets me in deeper.” Eve had on a stout oid homespun skirt and jacket. She took these off, t them into bands, which she twist- ed and knotted together. One band she left at its width, about nine inches, only knotted the ends. She worked very quickly and surely. She AN /4 and half stripped herself to make her rope long enough. Even her knitted stock- ings she took off and knotted to- gether, Lennan sald, “It's long enough now. Bve answered almost gayly: I want a double rope. It aln’t me will do this ‘hauling!™ & . [1es She had now a broad band of home- spun with a good ten feet of queer rope tied on at each end. She tested it once or twice. It was strong. She tied sticks to each end. The bull was near her, cowed by the terror of the night. She struck him suddenly omn the flank, and he wheeled with his back to Lennan. She slipped the broad band of homespun across his chest. The ends she managed to toss to Lennan. The sticks fell within his reach, he drew them toward him ard twisted the ropes round his hands. This tightened the lines. The bull felt the pull of them and swung un- certainly. ‘The band slipped on his chest. He backed, snorting, | touch ner. LENNAN'S SINEWS SEEMED AS THEY MUST CRACK. HE GROANED. EVA URGED THE BULL FORWARD. JUST AFEW INCHES, A FEW FEET, A FEW YARDS. She his, | Eve flung herself on him. |pressed her slight shoulder to trying to make him advance. She caught up a stake and beat him. She took stones and pounded his flanks. She cried and raged at him. He was too scared yet to be angry. He plunged forward at last, the broad band strained across his mighty muscles, narrowed, curled at the edges. It did not break. Back iIn the earth, Lennan held to the ropes. His sinews seemed as if they must crack. He groaned. Eve urged the bull forward. Just a few inches, a few feet, a few yards. i, INNAN, sheathed in mud, lay breathing hard on the trail Back In the bushes, the bull was re- sentfully ripping Eve's ropes to shreds between hoof and horn. By and by Lennan heaved himself erect. He was weak and stiff. He searched ‘WHEN HER HANDS WERE FULL, EVE TURNED. SHE HAD NOT Eve's face with his heavy, menacing gaze. She stood, smiling faintly. She was not afrald. “What are ypu doin’—here?” - “Tve just come from your Dlace. The slide’s taken the sheds and part of the fence, but the house is all right.” “What was you doin’-—there?’ “rd heard it was likely there'd be a slip from the mountain. The burnt soil has no hold after a bad rain. Tonight—someway, I knew it would be tonight” Her volce faltered, a little awed. “Icameup. ¢ @ *1 ina *“You came up % ¢ 7 Lennan heavily. “To tell you. there.” “No. I was here. You got me out. ® * ¥ You went up in the dark? Alone? To tell me? » Evegsaid quickly: “I know the trail well. I'm used to doin’ things alone. I'm used to lonely games. When your house was empty I'd go there often. I've no home of my own., I'd play it was mine” Her clear face darkened suddenly to & blush, but her eyes never wavered from his flerce ones. “I uged to play that I was waitin’ with the supper ready—for my man—to come home. T was playin’ that—the night you came. 1 should have told you—that other time—but I was scare Presently Lennan moved. He came to her with hesitant steps. He stretched out his hand, but did. not He was fighting for words. Something in his strength and his trouble brought the tears to Eve's eyes. He spoke at last, “Eve From the very first moment I seen you, pullin’ the roses, I knew you was the one for me. I was—Ilonely. When I thought you went there to meet another man, I—"" The difficult deep words rumbled and died. His eyes entreated her. She said: “I know. You was hurt, and so you was angry. I—been hurt that way, too.” He answered roughly: “You pulled me out of the mud, or I'd be there repeated But you wasn't Great Landsiide. +« & o You goin' to let me—sink back—into the other? Eve?™ She looked now, not at him, but af the stars. Soon she sald, softly, haif. heard: “The first moment. It happens sometimes—that way. I guess I knew.” “EveS” “That the roses was all pulled for you. That it was you I'd been waltin® for.” In a moment he wheeled from her, He sald abruptly, “You shall ride home." He crashed into the brush. Ev waited on the trail, faintly smiling, shivering in her old blue petticoat, There was a little frost shining on the rocks. It was as if & little sub- stance of the stars had fallen there, to remind earth of her heavenly kinship. Lennan came back, leading the bul! He took off his muddy mackinaw coa® and wrapped it clumsily about Eve then lifted her and set her on the bull’s back. “He'll be yours now,” he sald heavily, “so he'll let you ride him.” He slipped a cord through tha beast's nose ring, but it was n needed. The bull paced dociley Lennan’s side, carrying Eve down trall. “Mine,” she sald softly. But it was Lennan's shoulder on which she rest ed her hand. Again, as he turned to her at a bend of the trail, he saw he face near his, wet with bright tears She whispered, “Say, I'm glad to be home." “I'm glad to be home," he said The bull, scenting the dawn be- hind the forest, sounded a challenge to the fading stars. yet. You're pullin’ me out of this. (Copyright, 1023.) Bananas Produced In Nation’s Capital BY ARTHUR JAMES. BIT of the tropics transplanted to the capital of the United States may be found by the visitor to the building of the Pan-American Union, the organiza- tion that has done so much to bring about closer and more cordial rela- tions between this country and the sister republics to the south. Only the habitual sightseers, as a rule, know that bananas are growing in Washington. Plenty of specimens of the ripened fruit are on sale here, but only at the grounds of the beauti- ful structure that is the home of the | union—the commerclal home of the twenty-one countries that compose this ideal glllance—does the Washingto- nian or his guest find a living banana tres which bears the golden-hued fruit so common to warmer lands. The building where one finds out all about the many attractive things that Central and South America have to offer is bullt on a general plan that reminds one of the homes of some of the very rich who live in these modern El Dorados. As you enter the building, you stop for a moment, your eye rests upon a fountain in which goldfish play, you note the mosaics of the tribes of old, nd then your gaze turns toward the banana tree. You did not look high enough, so you have not seen the fine bunch of fruit that is almost ready for the picking. Your curiosity hav- ing been aroused, you want to know all about this tree and the attendant patiently gives you the details which, reduced from sclentific terms, are as follows: “There 1s always a flower before the bananas start their growth, and later they come out in the shape of small fruit, green in color. As they grow they turn to the golden yellow, and after a certain length of time they are ready to be eaten. You should taste one as it comes from the tree. It is truly luscious. During the time that the tree is bearing we have another branch or part of the tree growing, for after this bunch is i plucked then the tree, the part that bears it, appears to lose its strength.” You have probably often wondered | where all the buttons come from, for literally milllons of them are used every year. Perhaps if you ask the average man or woman, he or she will admit ignorance as to their ex- act source, but will assert bellef that the great majority of them are made of tvory. The answer is correct, in ‘part, for they are made of {vory, but not the kind that is secured from the tusks of elephants. The Ivory used in mfllions of buttons that we wear on our clothes comes from the fruit of the tagua palm and is known to the trade as the ivory nut. It may properly be termed vegetable ivory. This important industry of South America is about sixty years old. Some of the rubber gatherers in the forests of northern Ecuador told of a peculiar specles of palm which they found in great numbers and whose fruit was a nut. These nuts were called negritos. Upon close examina~ tion, it was found that when the nuts were dried they had the appearance of ivory. A sample lot was sent to Europe for experimental purposes and it was ssoon learmed that they made an ideal substitute for the ex- pensive genuine ivory that had been used in the making of buttons. It was found that when the kernel was foned very readily, that the texture permitted the absorption of colors and that it was capable of taking an extremely high polish. Over night, as it were, the industry sprang into being with the resuit that more than $2,000,000 worth of thes kernels are shipped from Bcuador. During the past few years Colombia and Panama have both increased their output. An interesting feature about the tagua or ivory palm is that the burr holds a collection of fifty to ninety nuts in groups. In this huge, rough, brown burr nature has provided ease of harvesting, for when the nuts are ripe the burr opens at the bottom and the nuts fall to the ground, thus alding those who gather them for a ving. As If to make it still easier for the gatherers, the nuts are cleaned by the wild hogs, squirrels and other animals. When they fall to the ground they are covered by a thin, soft, fibrous, oily, pink substance, which the animals suck off, leaving the nut clean with the exception of a skin of creamy white, dry, pastel-like substance which is easily removed. ‘When these nuts coms to the fac- tories here they look ltke small po- tato Generally they have one’side that is flattened. A sharp blow is necessary ‘to open._ths sbells, They thoroughly dried it could be fash-| are dried at a temperature of abi 100 degrees Fahrenhelt and are then placed In a machine that separate the kernel from the shell. They are sliced by rapidly revolving saws, one plece after another being cut off, fcr the core is generally cracked and | useless. They are then spread out on | steves and subjected to a higher tem- | perature, until every bit of moisture is out of them and their original bluish-white tint has changed to pure fvory white or cream color. This drying-out process takes about ten days, and no matter how much the tagua nut may be soaked or swollen in the subsequent processes of manufacture it always returns to its state of hardness. The pieces. being of different sizes, are sorted by machinery and again gone over by hand and any defective or cracked ones thrown out They then o to the button turners The pieces are now immersed steaming hot water until the tagua is just soft enough to be worked properly. A revolving tool on each side cuts the button to its proper shape and the residue falls to the bottom of the compartment in which the turner is working. Sometimes the waste is used as fuel. Machinery is again employed and the tagua Is fed to machines that riot only drill the holes but ream the edges, so that the thread, when goes through the apertures, will not be chafed or cut. A good machine will drill more than 200 gross of but- tons a day. s The next step in the process to which the white ivory button is sub- Jected is that of coloring, glving the shades and designs to match and har- monize with the latest materials. Many of the prominent men of this jcountry have been keen students of bird life, notably the late Col. Roose- velt, President Harding, Postmaster General New and Senator Reed Smoot. All of these have been recognized as experts. At the Pan-American Union build- ing are several cases that conta specimens of rare birds that the gen- eral public knows but little about, and if one has the time to spend looking at them he will be more than repaid for his trouble. The hoatzin is without doubt t most remarkable bird living today Those who have made a lifetime study of birds say that no other has the same characteristics. Its grace l1s batrachian rather than avian. Its body has & pungent and extremely imusky odor. Its mentality does not permit it to leave the habitat of its ancestors, so we find it self-caged. unwilling to move from accustomed haunts, The nest of the hoatzin is not what one would call an extra fine piece of engineering. In fact, it is a rather precarious home for the young ones— near the bank of a muddy stream. Often the new nest is built on top of the remains of an old one. The mother bird, when the nest is ap- proached, does not stay to defend her young, but flles to a point near at hand and tries to encourage it to fight the battle alone, The tones of the mother bird are more gutteral than those of the male. One might say that the deep tones are like a croak. When the nest is violated the young bird dives like a seal to the water below. He then swims to the shore and waddles his way to the foot of the particular tree in which his home 19 located. He goes to the trunk of the tree, then sticks out the lttle bone protuberances that are on each wing and lifts himself inch by inch by the horned pleces on his wings, up to his nest. He never makes a mistake in either the tres or the Iimb on which the nest is lo- cated. Ornithologists have frightened the same bird time after time, to see {f he really knew his home location, and never once did the hoatzin make a mistake, either in tree or in limb. As the bird grows older and his wings attain ‘thelr full growth the horns, drop off. When the bird has attained maturity its flight is like that of a fat chicken. The young hoatzin perhaps one of the few living crea= tures that combine the qualities of air flight, swimming, walking and the ability to climb trees. Another group of birds that is of terest consists of the fiycatchers. Certain specles of them are very secretive in the manner and the tlace in which they build their nests. Some select retired spots in the thickest parts of the forest, others mask their homes by selecting a bunch of heavy, leaves, while some use“the very tops of the trees as the place to hateh in