Evening Republican, Volume 22, Number 279, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 19 November 1919 — Army Officer Describes Animals, Birds, Reptiles of Panama Canal Jungle. [ARTICLE]

Army Officer Describes Animals, Birds, Reptiles of Panama Canal Jungle.

The blank spaces on the world’s map have been dwindling so rapidly that it is a bit surprising to read of a great wilderness —unmapped, uninhabited and practically unknown — alongside one of the greatT American thoroughfares. In his account in Natural History, Lleut.-Col. Townsend Whelen states that a passage cut from the Panama canal some five miles through a tangled second growth of small trees and other vegetation leads to a gigantic wall of verd are, and this’ is the beginning of the primeval jungle comprising most of the eastern portion of the Republic of Panama, and extending about 300 miles in length by 50 to 100 miles in width. In this strange new world one can wander unimpeded by thorns and creepers! in a climate oddly cool and. balmy. The vegetation is most impressive, even terrifying—giant moras, borigen, cavanillesia, ceibas, rubber and fig rising liAbless 100 to 200 feet, with tops spreading to shut out the sky, and a lower growth of many kinds of slender tree ferns and palms* developed in semi-darkness, that shorten one’s view without hindering progress. Hardly anywhere can one see more than 50 yards. The Jungle is alive with a wonderful bird life, which Is distributed in zones of altitude on the mountain slopes and locallV from the ground to the tree tops —quail, tinamou and pheasants being common near the earth’s surface, wrens, humming birds, thrushes and other species, in the low-bush level; doves, guans, owls and trogons, half way up, and parrots, parrakeet?, macaws, toucans and cotingas, under the leafy* roof. Tapir, deer, peccaries and other mammals, are abundant, though shy. The many serpents do little harm, the chief dangers being malaria, getting lost and falling branches and fruits.