PREFACE.

In the following pages we have set down the tale of two searches for a wilderness. These two private expeditions were undertaken for the purpose of learning something about the birds and other wild creatures of countries further south than any we had yet visited. Both trips were successful; for the regions we explored were wilderness wonderlands,—full of beauty, abounding in the romance which ever enhances wild creatures and wild men, and they were part of the great zoölogical “dark continent” which we hope to devote our lives to studying.

On our first search the collecting of live birds was incidental, although we brought back forty specimens of fourteen species.

On the second search, however, we took with us an assistant, Mr. Lee S. Crandall. By his assiduity in trapping and in arousing the interest of native coolie and black boys, he assembled a splendid collection of almost three hundred living birds of fifty-one species. These we brought to the New York Zoölogical Park, where no less than thirty-three species were new to the collection. In addition many small mammals and reptiles were collected.