SOUTH AMERICA. 127 



blue. This bird seems to suppose that its 8ECOND 



JOURNEY. 



beauty can be increased by trimming the tail, 



which undergoes the same operation as our hair 

 in a barber's shop, only with this difference, 

 that it uses its own beak, which is serrated, in 

 lieu of a pair of scissars : as soon as his tail is full 

 grown, he begins about an inch from the extremity 

 of the two longest feathers in it, and cuts away 

 the web on both sides of the shaft, making a 

 gap about an inch long : both male and female 

 Adonise their tails in this manner, which gives 

 them a remarkable appearance amongst all other 

 birds. While we consider the tail of the houtou 

 blemished and defective, were he to come amongst 

 us, he would probably consider our heads, cropped 

 and bald, in no better light. He who wishes its haunt*, 

 to observe this handsome bird in his native haunts, 

 must be in the forest at the morning's dawn. 

 The houtou shuns the society of man : the planta- 

 tions and cultivated parts are too much disturbed 

 to engage it to settle there ; the thick and gloomy 

 forests are the places preferred by the solitary 

 houtou. In those far-extending wilds, about day- 

 break, you hear him articulate, in a distinct and 

 mournful tone, " houtou, houtou." Move cautious 

 on to where the sound proceeds from, and you 

 will see him sitting in the underwood, about a 

 couple of yards from the ground, his tail moving 

 up and down every time he articulates " houtou." 

 He lives on insects and the berries amongst the 



