THE SYMPHONY OF VOICES 



Tijuca, as the vast landscape of sea and mountain began to darken, 

 a Sabia sang, with infinite pathos : 



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This motive is Hke that employed by Carlos Gomes in the fine 

 interlude of his opera The Slave, where the sunrise in Guanabara 

 Bay is described in tones of music. There the Sabia has the following 

 melody : 



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-*=E: 



Even outwardly the Sabias resemble our thrushes, and the black 

 Sabia una looks exactly like our blackbird, and the Sabia branco 

 like our song-thrush, while the Sabia larangeira is like a thrush, 

 except that it has an orange-red breast. In Buenos Aires this latter 

 Sabia, there known as the Zorzal, was the bird most frequently 

 seen in the park of Palermo. 



There is yet another bird that looks as if it had just flown over 

 from Europe. This is the Brazilian Hedge-sparrow, common all over 

 the country, and known as the Carrixa (Plate 28, 7). In Pernambuco 

 this bird is even called the Rouxinol (the Nightingale), but this is 

 to say too much for it, the song of the Carrixa being cheerful enough, 

 but inconspicuous ; it might be represented by psip, zipzipzip zipliirrr ; 

 but whatever its merits, it seems to give the artist much satisfaction, 

 for the bird sings all the year round. In this it is like our hedge- 

 sparrow, and distinguished from the latter only by its larger size 

 and longer bill. The Carrixa, however, is no longer a woodland 

 bird only; it prefers, like our European Redstart, to build its nest 

 in odd corners, or on the joists under the roof of a house or verandah. 

 There was a little bird at Olinda which had nested in the cloisters ; 

 every morning, cheerfully singing, it slipped into my room, and 

 hunted for spiders in the corners and at the window, and it very 

 soon discovered that even a naturalist may have his uses. On my 

 table there were often lying all sorts of edible insects ; once the bird 

 pulled the pupae and larvae of a Urussii bee out of the comb, and 

 cheerfully swallowed them. 



But Brazil has also her own song-birds, which have emerged only 

 on the American continent. And above all, the Brazilian Starlings. 



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