NOTES ON HOATZINS 



16'; 







4®«K£ 



/•7io/fj ?<)/ r. G. 7A. 



FIG. 41. NESTLING HOATZINS PROGRESSING ON ALL FOURS AND PREPARING 

 TO CLIMB OR TO DIVE FROM THE NEST. 



the widening ripples which undidated over the muddy water 

 — the only trace of the whereabouts of the young bird. 



It seemed as if no one, whether ornithologist, evolution- 

 ist, poet or philosopher could have failed to be profoundly 

 impressed at the sight we had seen. Here I was in a very 

 real, a very modern boat, with the honk of motor horns 

 sounding from the river road a few yards away through the 

 bushes, in the shade of this tropical vegetation in the year 

 nineteen hundred and sixteen, and yet the ciu-tain of the 

 past had been lifted, and I had been permitted a glimpse of 

 what must have been common in the millions of years ago. 

 It wiis a tremendous thing, a wonderful thing to have seen 

 and it seemed to dwarf all the strange sights I had seen in 

 all other parts of the earth's wilderness. I had read of these 



