NOTES ON HOATZINS 169 



habits and had expected them, but like one's first sight of a 

 volcano in eruption, no reading or description prepares one 

 for the actual phenomenon. 



I sat silently watching for the reappearance of the 

 young bird. We tallied five pairs of eyes and yet many min- 

 utes passed before I saw the same little head and emaciated 

 neck sticking out of the water alongside a bit of drift rubbish. 

 The only other visible thing was the protruding spikes of 

 the bedraggled tail feathers. I worked the boat in toward 

 the bird, half-heartedly, for I had made up my mind that 

 this brave little bit of atavism deserved his freedom, so splen- 

 didly had he fought for it among the pimplers. Soon he 

 ducked forward, dived out of sight and came up twenty feet 

 away among an inextricable tangle of vines. I sent a little 

 cheer of well wishing after him and we salvaged Sam. 



Then we shoved out the boat and watched from a dis- 

 tance. Five or six minutes passed and a skinny, crooked, 

 two-fingered mitten of an arm reared upward out of the 

 muddy flood and the nestling, black and glistening, hauled 

 itself out of water. Thus must the first amphibian have 

 climbed out, shaken the water from its eyes and gasped in 

 the thin air. But the young hoatzin neither gasped nor shiv- 

 ered, and seemed as self-possessed as if this were a common 

 occurrence in its life. There was not the slightest doubt, 

 however, that this was its first introduction to water. Yet 

 it had dived from a height of fifteen feet, about fifty times 

 its own length, as cleanly as a seal leaps from a berg. It was 

 as if a child should dive two hundred feet ! 



In fifteen minutes more it had climbed high above the 

 water and with unerring accuracy directly toward its natal 

 bundle of sticks overhead. The mother now came close and 

 with hoarse rasping notes and frantic heaves of tail and wings 

 lent encouragement. Just before we paddled from sight, 

 when the little fellow had reached his last rung, he partly 

 opened his beak and gave a little falsetto cry a clear, high 

 tone, tailing off to a gutter al rasp. His splendid courage 



