CONTENTS

CHAPTER PAGE
I [The Lure of Kartabo][3]
II [A Jungle 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.