High Jungle

William Beebe

My favorite naturalist with a unique book on "Watching 'Em Alive" in the jungles of Venezuela. Episodes in some of his fascinating undersea books are still vivid in memory. Now alongside them I can put his battle of the fly catchers, the drama of the green caciques, the saga of the jungle faloons, the battles of the beetles. I would forget - if I could - the parade of the maggots, and a few other unsavory bits, but on the whole, though he gives me no longing for jungle habitation, he makes it fascinating to read of the adventures, the techniques of the jungle naturalist- and the things he learns as he watches the teeming life around him. There's almost nothing of personal experience. He never brings in humans except as catalysts at times, observers chiefly, interpreters and learners, from the warfare of the plant world, the animal world, the insect world, the bird world. This is the record of Dr. Beebe's expeditions to the Venezuelan Andes in 1945, '46, '47.