Book Noilccs and Reviews. 15 



liabits — thev l)rin5:: close tlie dim epochs of past time, and renew for an 

 inspection the youth of l)ird-life on the eartli .... We took a boat 

 opposite Mr. Beckitt's 1 ouse, and paddled slowly with the nearly-f^ood 

 tide up the Berbice River .... For three miles we drifted past the 

 chosen haunts of the hoatzins. All were perched in the shade, quiet in 

 the intense heat, squatting prostrate or sleepily preening their plumage. 

 Now and then we saw a bird on her nest, always over the water. If she 

 was sitting on eggs she sat close. If young birds were in the nest she 

 half crouched, or perched on the rim. so that her body cast a shadow over 



the voung ^s I have mentioned the nest of the hoatzin is 



invariablv Iniilt over the water, and we shall later discover the reason 

 for this. The nests were sometimes only four feet above high water, 

 or eciually rarely, at a height of forty to fifty feet. From six to fifteen 

 feet included the zone of four-fifths of the nests of these birds. They 

 varied much in solidity, some being frail and loosely put together, the 

 dry, dead sticks which composed them dropping apart almost at a touch. 

 Usuallv thev were as well knitted as a heron's and in about half the cases 

 consisted of a recent nest built upon the foundations of an old one. There 

 was hardly any cavity at the top, and the coarse network of sticks looked 

 like a most precarious resting place for eggs, and an exceedingly 

 uncomfortable one for young birds .... But the heart of our 

 interest in hoatzins centred in the nestlings. . . . The nestlings, in 

 seven occupied nests, observed as we drifted along shore, or landed and 

 climbed among the thorns, were in an almost identical stage of develop- 

 ment .... But one little hoatzin, if he had any thoughts such as 

 these, failed to count on the invariable exceptions to every rule, for this 

 day the totally unexpeclcd haj)pened. Fate, in the shape of enthusiastic 

 SL-icntists. descended upon him. Fie was not for a second nonplussed 

 . And we found him no mean antagonist, and far from rep- 

 tilian in his ability to meet new and unforeseen conditions. 



" His mother, who a moment before had been packing his capacious 

 litlle croj) with jM-edigested pimpler leaves, had now flown off to an 



.icljacent grou]) of mangroves Hardly had his mother left 



when his comical head, with thick, blunt beak and large intelligent eyes, 

 appeared over the edge of the nest. His alert expression was increased by 

 the suspicion of a crest on his crown where the down was slightly larger. 

 Higher and higher rose his head, supported by a neck of extraordinary 

 length and thinness. . . . Sam, my black tree-climber, kicked off 

 his shoes and began creeping along the horizontal limbs of the pimplers. 

 . . . . At last his hand touched the branch and it shook slightly. 

 The young bird stretched his nn'ttened hands high above his head and 

 waved them a moment. . . . One or two uncertain steiis forward 

 brought the bird to the edge of the nest at the base of a small branch. 

 There he stood, and raising one wing leaned heavily against the stem, 

 bracing himself. My man climbed higher, and the nest swayed violently. 



