68 THROUGH THE BRAZILIAN WILDERNESS 



the marsh. But ibis and herons abounded; the former ut- 

 tered queer, querulous cries when they discovered our 

 presence. The spurred lapwings were as noisy as they 

 always are. The ibis and plover did not pay any heed 

 to the fish; but the black carrion vultures feasted on 

 them in the mud; and in the pools that were not dry 

 small alligators, the jacare-tinga, were feasting also. In 

 many places the stench from the dead fish was un- 

 pleasant. 



Then for miles we rode through a beautiful open forest of 

 tall, slender caranda palms, with other trees scattered 

 among them. Green parakeets with black heads chattered 

 as they flew; noisy green and red parrots climbed among 

 the palms; and huge macaws, some entirely blue, others 

 almost entirely red, screamed loudly as they perched in 

 the trees or took wing at our approach. If one was wounded 

 its cries kept its companions circling around overhead. The 

 naturalists found the bird fauna totally different from that 

 which they had been collecting in the hill country near 

 Corumba, seventy or eighty miles distant; and birds 

 swarmed, both species and individuals. South America 

 has the most extensive and most varied avifauna of all 

 the continents. On the other hand, its mammalian fauna, 

 although very interesting, is rather poor in number of spe- 

 cies and individuals and in the size of the beasts. It pos- 

 sesses more mammals that are unique and distinctive in 

 type than does any other continent save Australia; and 

 they are of higher and much more varied types than in 

 Australia. But there is nothing approaching the majesty, 

 beauty, and swarming mass of the great mammalian life of 

 Africa and, in a less degree, of tropical Asia; indeed, it does 



