CLEARING 34

III THE HOME TOWN OF THE ARMY ANTS 58

IV A JUNGLE BEACH 90

V A BIT OF USELESSNESS 112

VI GUINEVERE THE MYSTERIOUS 123

VII A JUNGLE LABOR UNION 149

VIII THE ATTAS AT HOME 172

IX HAMMOCK NIGHTS 195

X A TROPIC GARDEN 230

XI THE BAY OF BUTTERFLIES 252

XII SEQUELS 274

APPENDIX OF SCIENTIFIC NAMES 295

INDEX 299

* * * * *

EDGE OF THE JUNGLE

"For the true scientific method is this:
To trust no statements without verification,
to test all things as rigorously as possible,
to keep no secrets, to attempt no monopolies,
to give out one's best modestly and plainly,
serving no other end but knowledge."

H. G. WELLS.

I

THE LURE OF KARTABO

A house may be inherited, as when a wren rears its brood in turn
within its own natal hollow; or one may build a new home such as is
fashioned from year to year by gaunt and shadowy herons; or we may
have it built to order, as do the drones of the wild jungle bees. In
my case, I flitted like a hermit crab from one used shell to another.
This little crustacean, living his oblique life in the shallows,
changes doorways when his home becomes too small or hinders him in
searching for the things which he covets in life. The difference
between our estates was that the hermit crab sought only for food, I
chiefly for strange new facts--which was a distinction as trivial as
that he achieved his desires sideways and on eight legs, while I
traversed my environment usually forward and generally on two.

The word of finance went forth and demanded the felling of the second
growth around Kalacoon, and for the second time the land was given
over to cutlass and fire. But again there was a halting in the affairs
of man, and the rubber saplings were not planted or were smothered;
and again the jungle smiled patiently through a knee-tangle of thorns
and blossoms, and the charred clumps of razor-grass sent forth skeins
of saws and hanks of living barbs.

I stood beneath the familiar cashew trees, which had yielded for me so
bountifully of their crops of blossoms and hummingbirds, of fruit and
of tanagers, and looked out toward the distant jungle, which trembled
through the expanse of palpitati