ear. Suddenly, without warning,
there flapped into my field, a huge shapeless creature. It was no
bird, and there was nothing of the bat in its flight--the wings moved
with steady rhythmical beats, and drove it straight onward. The wings
were skinny, the body large and of a pale ashy hue. For a moment I was
shaken. One of the others had seen it, and he, too, did not speak, but
concentrated every sense into the end of the little tubes. By the time
I had begun to find words, I realized that a giant fruit bat had flown
from utter darkness across my line of sight; and by close watching we
soon saw others. But for a very few seconds these Pterodactyl Pups, as
I nicknamed them, gave me all the thrill of a sudden glimpse into the
life of past ages. The last time I had seen fruit bats was in the
gardens of Perideniya, Ceylon. I had forgotten that they occurred in
Guiana, and was wholly unprepared for the sight of bats a yard across,
with a heron's flight, passing high over the Mazaruni in the
moonlight.

The talk ended on the misfortune of the configuration of human
anatomy, which makes sky-searching so uncomfortable a habit. This
outlook was probably developed to a greater extent during the war
than ever before; and I can remember many evenings in Paris and London
when a sinister half-moon kept the faces of millions turned
searchingly upward. But whether in city or jungle, sky-scanning is a
neck-aching affair.

The following day my experience with the Pterodactyl Pups was not
forgotten, and as a direct result of looking out for soaring vultures
and eagles, with hopes of again seeing a white-plumaged King and the
regal Harpy, I caught sight of a tiny mote high up in mid-sky. I
thought at first it was a martin or swift; but it descended, slowly
spiraling, and became too small for any bird. With a final, long,
descending curve, it alighted in the compound of our bungalow
laboratory and rested quietly--a great queen of the leaf-cutting Attas
returning from her marriage flight. After a few minutes she stirred,
walked a few steps, cleaned her antennae, and searched nervously about
on the sand. A foot away was a tiny sprig of indigo, the offspring of
some seed planted two or three centuries ago by a thrifty Dutchman. In
the shade of its three leaves the insect paused, and at once began
scraping at the sand with her jaws. She loosened grain after grain,
and as they came free they were moistened, agglutinated, and pressed
back again