368 A JOURNEY IN BRAZIL. 



was one species among them which attracted my attention 

 by its numbers, and also because it builds the most ex- 

 traordinary nest, considering the size of the bird itself, 

 that I have ever seen. It is known among the country 

 people by two names, as the Pedreiro or the Forneiro ; 

 both names referring, as will be seen, to the nature of 

 its habitation. This singular nest is built of clay, and 

 is as hard as stone (pedra), while it has the form of the 

 round mandioca oven (fomo) in which the country people 

 prepare their farinha, or flour, made from the mandioca 

 root. It is about a foot in diameter, and stands edgewise 

 upon a branch, or in the crotch of a tree. Among the 

 smaller birds I noticed bright Tanagers, and also a species 

 resembling the Canary. Besides these, there were the 

 wagtails ; the black and white widow-finches ; the hang- 

 nests, or Japi, as they are called here, with their pen- 

 dent, bag-like dwellings, and the familiar " Bern ti vi." 

 Humming-birds, which we are always apt to associate with 

 tropical vegetation, were very scarce. I saw but a few 

 specimens. Thrushes and doves were more frequent, and 

 I noticed also three or four kinds of woodpeckers, beside 

 parrots and paroquets ; of these latter there were countless 

 numbers along our canoe path, flying overhead in dense 

 crowds, and at times drowning every other sound in their 

 high, noisy chatter. 



" Some of these birds made a deep impression upon me. 

 Indeed, in all regions, however far away from his own home, 

 in the midst of a fauna and flora entirely new to him, the 

 traveller is startled occasionally by the song of a bird or the 

 sight of a flower so familiar that it transports him at once 

 to woods where every tree is like a friend to him. It seems 

 as if something akin to what in our own mental experience 



