HOATZINS AT HOME 129 



one, not particularly disagreeable. I searched 

 my memory at every whiff for something of 

 which it vividly reminded me, and at last the 

 recollection came to me — the smell, delectable 

 and fearfully exciting in former years — of ele- 

 phants at a circus, and not altogether elephants 

 either, but a compound of one-sixth sawdust, 

 another part peanuts, another of strange ani- 

 mals and three-sixths swaying elephant. That, 

 to my mind, exactly describes the odor of hoat- 

 zins as I sensed it among these ahen surround- 

 ings. 



As I have mentioned, the nest of the hoatzin 

 was invariably built over the water, and we shall 

 later discover the reason for this. The nests 

 were sometimes only four feet above high water, 

 or equally rarely, at a height of forty to fifty 

 feet. From six to fifteen feet included the zone 

 of four-fifths of the nests of these birds. They 

 varied much in solidity, some being frail and 

 loosely put together, the dry, dead sticks which 

 composed them dropping apart almost at a 

 touch. Usually they were as well knitted as a 

 heron's, and in about half the cases consisted of 

 a recent nest built upon the foundations of an 

 old one. There was hardly any cavity at the 



