NOTES ON HOATZINS - 



167 



Photo &j/ P. G. H. 



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

 TO CLIMB OR TO DIVE FROM THE NEST. 



the widening ripples which undulated 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 curtain 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 was 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 



