THE MANAKINS. 



PC At" 

 RUPICOLV AURANTIA. 



The Fifth Family of the Dentirostrai, tribe consists of the Fijjridcc, or the Mauakins. 

 These birds form an extensive family ; Latham enumerates some forty of them. They 

 appear to be a restless class of birds, like some found in our ovm country, who seem ever 

 to be on the alert in pursuit of knowledge under difhcultics, of the organisation and 

 tenantry' of every spray of eveiy bush which they can A'isit. 



The engraving represents the rock manakin, one of the most elegant birds of the 

 present famil^^ It is a native of South America, inhabiting the rocky and mountainous 

 districts along the rivers of Surinam, Cayenne, and Guiana ; and probably it may be 

 found along the whole range of the river Amazon, with its tributary branches. Accord- 

 ing to Latham, it is nowhere so frequent as in the mountain Luca, near the river 

 Aprouack, where it builds in the cavernous hollows and dark recesses. The nest is 

 composed of a few dry sticks, and the eggs are two in number, of the size of those of a 

 pigeon, and equally white. 



The rock manakin is a shy and solitary bird, preferring silent and secluded glens, and 

 rockv ravines, to all other spots ; and there it seems to pass an imdisturbed existence. 

 Waterton states that it is a native of the woody mountains of Macousliia, a tract on the 

 Apoura-poura, a tributary river falling into the Essequibo from the south, inhabited by 

 the Macoushi Indians, so celebrated for their skill in jn-eparing the deadly vegetable 

 poison wouriili, with wliidi they smear tli(? points of their arrows. In llie day-time it 

 retires among the darkest rocks, and only comes out to feed a little before sunrise and at 

 sunset. So gloomy is its disposition, tliat it never associates with the other birds of the 

 forest. 



