hyphenated word was joined on the previous page because of the intervening image.— Ineuw talk 22:52, 14 January 2014 (UTC) (Wikisource contributor note)
A Termite's Nest in a Tree. Note the covered roadway passing down the tree trunk which bears the nest. The figure at the right shows the covered roadways of termites on a tree trunk.
makes them difficult to see. To secure them one must attend to little else. Our interests were not in big game, but we were well repaid with smaller fry—the forest filled our eyes, and notebooks, and photographic films to overflowing—yet never to satiety. There was always something new and interesting.
The forest swarmed with lizards, such as the little anoles and geckos, which crouched motionless or scampered swiftly after fleeing insects. Snakes lurked among the fallen leaves or climbed among the trees—gaudy coral snakes with their cross bands of red and yellow, the vicious fer-de-lance or bushmaster (called "Ecke" by the Colombians), big, but harmless, gopher snakes. Sometimes we met a "Bejuca" (vine snake)—the most curious of them all—never half an inch in diameter and attaining a length of three or four feet. But snakes were not easy to find. We rarely got more than two or three in a day, sometimes one, often none. Scorpions, tarantulas and other spiders abounded throughout the forest. Big land snails crawled on the trees or over the ground. Bright-colored butterflies fluttered in flocks through the open spaces. Probably the most typical forest vertebrates were the little tree frogs, which were abundant and various, and whose shrill piping was often the only sound to break the deep silence.
At night we took our jack-light (an acetylene lamp mounted on the front of a hat or carried in the hand) and sought nocturnal animals. On these excursions Bufo marinus, "the giant among toads," was always encountered. Another curious toad, a Ceratophrys, was dubbed the "snapdragon" by Dr. Ruthven on account of its fierce behavior. It would snap at us and grasp the end of a stick in its mouth, hanging on firmly while it was swung about in the air. Goatsuckers and bats often came right up to the light and flew about over our heads. Snakes were
