116 TROPICAL WILD LIFE IN BRITISH GUIANA 



molested. The animosity was racial or specific, not indiscrim- 

 inate. When striving for the possession of the nesting box, 

 two martins sometimes fell with a thump to the ground, 

 locked tight together, and lay there, disheveled and with 

 flying feathers, pecking viciously at one another. 



All tribes of Guiana Indians have certain beliefs and 

 legends concerning birds. The goatsuckers and owls are 

 considered birds of ill omen, their calls presaging illness or 

 death. Others, such as bellbirds, kingfishers and eagles, are 

 thought to predict rain. Brett gives two stories which are 

 supposed to account for the present colors and patterns of 

 birds, a short cut to evolution which, on days of discouraged 

 investigation, we would heartily wish were true ! 



An Arawak hunter captured a vulture, daughter of 

 Annuanna. This latter, so Koth tells us in his account of 

 the Animism and Folk-lore of the Guiana Indians, is the 

 carrion crow or caracara. The vulture laid aside her feath- 

 ers, appeared before him as a beautiful girl, became his wife, 

 carried him above the clouds, and after much trouble, per- 

 suaded her father and famil}^ to receive him. All went well 

 until he expressed a wish to visit his aged mother, when his 

 new-found family discarded him and set him on the top of 

 a very high tree, the trunk of which was covered with for- 

 midable prickles. He appealed to all the living creatures 

 around. Finally, spiders spun cords to help him, and flut- 

 tering birds eased his descent so that at last he reached the 

 ground in safety. Then followed his efl^orts, extending over 

 several years, to regain his wife. At length the birds es- 

 poused his cause, assembled their forces, and bore him, as 

 their commander, above the sky. At last he was slain by 

 a valiant young warrior, resembling him in person and fea- 

 ture, who turned out to be his own son. The legend ends 

 with the conflagration of the House of the Royal Vultures. 

 The kiskadee flycatcher, though a valiant little bird, disliked 

 the war, and bandaged his head with white cotton, pretend- 

 ing to be sick, but being detected, was sentenced to wear it 



