SOUTH AMERICA. 



returns to the island, and every Englishman too, 

 pays the tax ! 



Finding no vessel here for Trinidad, I em- Embarks 

 barked in a schooner for Demerara, landed there rara. e 

 after being nearly stranded on a sand-bank, and 

 proceeded without loss of time to the forests in 

 the interior. It was the dry season, which renders 

 a residence in the woods very delightful. 



There are three species of jacamar to be found 

 on the different sand-hills and dry savannas of 

 Demerara ; but there is another much larger and 

 far more beautiful to be seen when you arrive in 

 that part of the country where there are rocks. 

 The jacamar has no affinity to the woodpecker The Jaca- 

 or king-fisher, (notwithstanding what travellers 

 affirm,) either in its haunts or anatomy. The 

 jacamar lives entirely on insects, but never goes 

 in search of them. It sits patiently for hours 

 together on the branch of a tree, and when the 

 incautious insect approaches, it flies at it with the 

 rapidity of an arrow, seizes it, and generally 

 returns to eat it on the branch which it had just 

 quitted. It has not the least attempt at song, 

 is very solitary, and so tame that you may get 

 within three or four yards of it before it takes 

 flight. The males of all the different species 

 which I have examined have white feathers on 

 the throat. I suspect that all the male jacamars 

 hitherto discovered have this distinctive mark. 

 I could learn nothing of its incubation. The 



