HINTS TO ORNITHOLOGISTS. 293 



enabled to point out those birds which are supposed 

 to be pre-eminently gifted with the powers of 

 perching and of grasping; and should these our 

 masters recommend that this novel study be ap- 

 plied to quadrupeds, and to bipeds, as well as to 

 birds; I respectfully beg leave to inform them 

 that I have been gifted by Nature with vast powers 

 of leg and toe : I can spread all my five toes ; and, 

 when I am barefoot in the forest, I can make use 

 of them in picking up sundry small articles from 

 the ground. Having an uncommon liking for high 

 situations, I often mount to the top of a lofty tree, 

 there to enjoy the surrounding scenery : nor can I 

 be persuaded that I risk " life and limb " in gaining 

 the elevated situation. These, no doubt, are quali- 

 ties and propensities aberrant from the true human 

 type ; and, according to the new theory, will at 

 once account for my inordinate love of arboreal 

 celsitude. 



There is a bird in Guiana named Kamichi. We 

 call it the horned screamer. On its head grows a 

 long, slender, and blunt kind of horn ; if horn it 

 can be called. We are informed, in a late publica- 

 tion, that the bird uses this horn as a means of self- 

 defence against its enemies. 



La Mancha's knight, in his wildest mood for pike 

 and helmet, never hit upon any thing so extrava- 

 gant as this. No bird ever makes use of the crown 

 of its head, or of anything that grows thereon, as a 

 means of self-defence. Even if the horn on the 

 head of the Kamichi were of a texture sufficiently 

 strong to form a weapon of defence, still this bird 

 U 3 



