HEADWATERS OF THE PARAGUAY 99 



and which travel up and down these rivers, laden with 

 what the natives most need, and stopping wherever there 

 is a ranch. They are the only stores which many of the 

 country-dwellers see from year's end to year's end. They 

 float down-stream, and up-stream are poled by their crew, 

 or now and then get a tow from a steamer. This one had 

 a house with a tin roof; others bear houses with thatched 

 roofs, or with roofs made of hides. The river wound 

 through vast marshes broken by belts of woodland. 



Always the two naturalists had something of interest 

 to tell of their past experience, suggested by some bird or 

 beast we came across. Black and golden orioles, slightly 

 crested, of two different species were found along the river; 

 they nest in colonies, and often we passed such colonies, 

 the long pendulous nests hanging from the boughs of trees 

 directly over the water. Cherrie told us of finding such 

 a colony built round a big wasp-nest, several feet in diam- 

 eter. These wasps are venomous and irritable, and few 

 foes would dare venture near bird's-nests that were under 

 such formidable shelter; but the birds themselves were 

 entirely unafraid, and obviously were not in any danger of 

 disagreement with their dangerous protectors. We saw a 

 dark ibis flying across the bow of the boat, uttering his 

 deep, two-syllabled note. Miller told how on the Orinoco 

 these ibises plunder the nests of the big river-turtles. They 

 are very skilful in finding where the female turtle has laid 

 her eggs, scratch them out of the sand, break the shells, 

 and suck the contents. 



It was astonishing to find so few mosquitoes on these 

 marshes. They did not in any way compare as pests with 

 the mosquitoes on the lower Mississippi, the New Jersey 



