158 TROPICAL WILD LIFE IN BRITISH GUIANA 



river's edge in front of a house. And the river was the Ber- 

 bice, and the house that of Mr. Beckett. 



Thus are the hoatzins independent of space as all other 

 flying birds know it, and in their classic reptilian affinities, 

 voice, actions, arms, fingers, habits, they bring close the dim 

 epochs of past time and renew for our inspection, the youth 

 of bird life on the earth. It is discouraging even to attempt 

 to translate facts of such tremendous import, habits fraught 

 with so profound a significance into words, or to make them 

 realistic even with the aid of photographs. 



We took a boat opposite Beckett's house and paddled 

 slowly with the nearly flood tide up the Berbice River. It 

 was two o'clock, the hottest time of the day. For three miles 

 we drifted past the chosen haunts of the hoatzins. All were 

 perched in the shade, quiet in the violent heat, squatting pros- 

 trate or sleepily preening their plumage. Now and then we 

 saw a bird on her nest always over the water. If she were 

 sitting on eggs she sat close ; if young birds were in the nest 

 she half crouched, or perched on the rim, so that her body 

 cast a shadow over the young. 



The vegetation was not varied. Mucka-mucka was here 

 and there in the foreground, with an almost solid line of bun- 

 duri pimpler or thorn tree (Drepanocarpus lunatus). This 

 was the real home of the birds, and this plant forms the back- 

 ground whenever the hoatzin comes to mind. This growth 

 loves the water and crowds down so that the rising of the 

 tide, whether salt or brackish, covers the mud in which it 

 grows, so that it appears as aquatic as the mangrove which, 

 here and there, creeps out alongside it. The pimpler bears 

 thorns of the first magnitude, often double, recurved and at 

 such diabolically unexpected places, that like barbed wire, 

 it is impossible to grasp anywhere without drawing blood. 

 Such a chevaux-de-frise would defend a trench against the 

 most courageous regiment. The stems were light grey, 

 greening toward the younger shoots, and the foliage was 



