After a while he reappeared; he was coming down again in a series of circles to the forest. At times his huge wings spread their full length and then stood still. He seemed to hang motionless in the air. When he had come down near enough, he scanned the great sea of trees all over, to see if their branches were moving, for this would show that there were monkeys upon them feeding upon their fruit, nuts, or berries. But all was still; not a branch stirred, and there was no wind. His eyes looked down perpendicularly and could see any object right under him. There was no monkey in sight.
He said to himself: “Why have the monkeys been so shy of late, and kept themselves in the middle of the trees, never coming to their tops? Surely other guanioniens must have been here before me and scared all the monkeys: they are afraid and keep out of sight; they know that we cannot pounce upon them. How cunning they are!”
He saw a giant tree about four hundred feet high, rising twice as high as the other trees of the forest, and meditated: “The creatures of the forest know the favorite trees upon which I perch and eat my prey, only by the skulls and bones of the monkeys I have torn to pieces and devoured lying at their feet on the ground.—But,” he added, “it is not every day that I get a meal.”
He laughed: “No harm can ever befall me, for no enemy can frighten me; no bird is strong enough to fight against me; the spears and arrows of human beings can never reach me and hurt me, for I fly and perch so high; men cannot even see the tops of my trees on account of the thick foliage which shuts off from them even the sun and the sky.”
After he had rested, he flew away and soared over the dark green forest, which was so large that it seemed to have no beginning nor end, and once more he watched for monkeys. But his piercing, far-sighted eyes saw nothing,—not a branch of a tree was moving. Then he thought it was time to seek his mate, for they had agreed when they parted in the morning to meet on a certain tree upon which they were accustomed to rest during the day after their noon search for prey, and tell each other what had happened.
Before long he saw the tree he sought. It was easily recognizable by the peculiar shape of its branches. Soon he was soaring over it, uttering peculiar sounds belonging to the language of the guanioniens, and meaning, “Are you there, dear? I am coming;” and his mate, already at the rendezvous, replied, “Here I am, dear, waiting for you.”
Soon after, the big guanionien had alighted upon a branch close to hers, and the two looked at each other with affection, for they had not seen each other since they had parted a little after daylight.
They uttered sounds which seemed strange, for these were words belonging to the guanionien language, which meant, “How glad, dear, I am to see you! How are you?” or, “How have you been since this morning?”
After their greeting there was a short silence, then the big guanionien said to his mate, “Dear, what is the news? Have you been lucky to-day? Have you had a meal?”
“No,” she replied. “Not a monkey came in sight to-day. They were afraid to come to the tops of the trees to feed, though I heard many of them talking among themselves several times. I am starving. Surely guanioniens have been in the region before us, and that is the reason why the monkeys keep away.”