Recently Published Ornithological Works. 213 



northward in November and returning southward in May, 

 and I had the pleasuie of having some of them stay to dine 

 with me. One of their halting places on their way to the 

 Orinoco was on islands near the mouth of the Casiquiari, at 

 only a few hours' journey above San Carlos. There I have 

 seen them roosting on the tree-tops in such long close lines 

 that by moonlight the trees seemed clad with white flowers. 

 They descend to the sandy spits of the islauds to fish in the 

 grey of the evening and morning, i. e. before betaking them- 

 selves to their eyrie and before resuming their journey on 

 the following day. The scarcity of fish in rivers of clear or 

 black water is well known ; and even were they more abun- 

 dant, this very clearness of the water would render it difficult 

 for fish-eating fowls to catch them unless when there was 

 little light. Hence, perhaps, the Ibis's choice of hours for 

 fishing; and the turbid water poured into the Rio Negro by 

 the Casiquiari dulls its transparency at that point, which 

 makes it eligible for a fishing station, leaving probably only 

 a single day's stage for the travellers to reach the Orinoco. 

 The Ibises, however, did not, as one might have supposed, 

 turn up the Casiquiari, but held right on to the north, 

 crossing the isthmus of Pimichin, and descending the Ata- 

 bapo to the Orinoco. Some of them, I was told, would halt 

 on the Guaviare, while others push on to the Apure ; the 

 former lot, however, are said to travel chiefly by way of the 

 Japura from the Amazon. Those that frequent the Upper 

 Orinoco return in May, and their halting-place near San 

 Carlos is not at the mouth of the Casiquiari, but on the 

 islands a day's journey below the village, so that they are at 

 that season less persecuted by the Indians. If they went all 

 the way clown the Rio Negro in May they would reach the 

 Amazon long before its beaches began to be exposed. But 

 it has been ascertained that they sojourn awhile on the Rio 

 Branco, where the beaches are earlier uncovered. Flocks 

 of Wild Ducks sometimes accompany the Ibises, and it is 

 quite possible that some of the smaller aquatic and riparial 

 Fowls make similar migrations. 



" When the Ibises are roosting a shot or two from a gun 



