106 TROPICAL WILD LIFE IN BRITISH GUIANA 



It was of considerable significance to analyze the vari- 

 ous causes which sustained, if indeed they had not brought 

 about, the lack of necessity for protective coloring. Among 

 the twenty-odd groups enjoying this freedom there were six 

 very evident factors which compensated the birds for con- 

 spicuousness. Caracaras could revel in almost solid black, 

 kites in black and white and hawks in all sorts of pigments 

 and ])atterns, since they themselves were pursuers, and hence 

 all })ut immune from serious danger of direct attack. De- 

 generate offshoots from these, the vultures claimed shame- 

 less immunity by reason of their odor and unpalatability. 

 Size and strengtii enabled tlie egrets to tlu'ive while garbed 

 in snowy white, and the terrible beaks of the macaws rarely 

 failed to defend them against whatever peril was aroused by 

 advertisement of their harlequin pluniage. Sheer pugnacity 

 stood a number of the groups in good stead, the terns, isolated 

 as they were up these rivers, the spur-winged jacanas, a sin- 

 gle female of which I have seen standing off repeated darts 

 of a small falcon ; kingfishers and woodpeckers whose beaks 

 function normally in such unlike niediums, yet are united in 

 virile and successful defense. Orioles and jays are proverbi- 

 ally good fighters, while flycatchers are the policemen of the 

 bird world and scream to scorn every approach of falcon or 

 hawk. 



Numbers were brought to bear in the case of trumpet- 

 ers, toucans, caciques, anis and blackbirds, although as a 

 matter of fact the two latter could offer but little concerted 

 attack and usually preferred flight to valor, diving headlong 

 into bushes or reeds. The aberrant swallow puffbirds es- 

 caped by swift, skillful dodging, appearing to outdistance 

 any hawk with ease, and the swifts, swallows and martins 

 did the same, while the active little wrens were comparatively 

 safe in their underbrush preserves. Hummingbirds lived in 

 a veritable fourth dimension of safety, thanks to their insect- 

 like flight. 



