328 Mr. J. J. Quelch on the 



channel, from the main stream. They are said to extend 

 upward along the Berbice and the Canje' for a considerable 

 distance ; but on this point I have no personal knowledge, 

 and reports which I have heard on the subject are conflicting. 

 Where the birds are most abundantly found, the banks of 

 the watercourses are lined by a thick, often impenetrable, 

 and variable growth, which is washed and partially swamped 

 by the water at high tide, and is fronted with a wide and deep 

 deposit of soft mud at low water. Among the plants, a 

 prickly and thorny, low-spreading, much-branched, legu- 

 minous shrub or tree, commonly known as the " Bundoorie 

 pimpler" {Drepanocarjms lunatus), which stretches out even 

 over the water, rising and falling with it, generally occurs 

 in more or less dense masses, together with the " Courida " 

 (Avicennia nitida), and a tall tree-like aroid, commonly known 

 as " Mucco-mucco " (Montrichardia arborescens) , which 

 grows most luxuriantly in the muddy and swampy districts ; 

 and the young leaves and the fruits of these plants furnish 

 almost the entire food of these birds. I have never seen 

 them on the ground, nor feeding on the low weedy growths 

 on its surface. 



Almost invariably, where one or other of the three men- 

 tioned plants formed the nearly continuous growth by the 

 water, the birds there shot contained in their crops only the 

 leaves (or fruit) of that one plant ; but where the plants 

 were mingled, sometimes one and sometimes another had 

 been eaten. 



This dense lining-growth furnishes the home of the birds. 

 In the early morning or the late afternoon they will be seen 

 sitting in numbers on the plants, while towards the middle 

 of the day, as the fierce heat of the sun increases, they betake 

 themselves to shelter, either in the denser recesses of the 

 growths, or among the individual trees of denser foliage, or 

 among the tangled masses of creeping and climbing vines, 

 which frequently spread over considerable areas of their 

 food-plants along the very edge of the water. At this time 

 one may pass, by boat, along the river without the faintest 

 idea of the proximity of the birds, unless a very sharp watch 



