HEADWATERS OF THE PARAGUAY 107 



knew the rodeo had been abandoned, and we turned our 

 faces for the long, dripping, splashing ride homeward. 

 Through the gusts of driving rain we could hardly see the 

 way. Once the rain lightened, and half a mile away the 

 sunshine gleamed through a rift in the leaden cloud-mass. 

 Suddenly in this rift of shimmering brightness there ap- 

 peared a flock of beautiful white egrets. With strong, 

 graceful wing-beats the birds urged their flight, their 

 plumage flashing in the sun. They then crossed the rift 

 and were swallowed in the gray gloom of the day. 



On the marsh the dogs several times roused capybaras. 

 Where there were no ponds of sufficient size the capybaras 

 sought refuge in flight through the tangled marsh. They 

 ran well. Kermit and Fiala w^ent after one on foot, full- 

 speed, for a mile and a half, with two hounds which then 

 bayed it — literally bayed it, for the capybara fought with 

 the courage of a gigantic woodchuck. If the pack over- 

 took a capybara, they of course speedily finished it; but 

 a single dog of our not very valorous outfit was not able 

 to overmatch its shrill-squeaking opponent. 



Near the ranch-house, about forty feet up in a big tree, 

 was a jabiru's nest containing young jabirus. The young 

 birds exercised themselves by walking solemnly round the 

 edge of the nest and opening and shutting their wings. 

 Their heads and necks were down-covered, instead of being 

 naked like those of their parents. Fiala wished to take 

 a moving-picture of them while thus engaged, and so, after 

 arranging his machine, he asked Harper to rouse the young 

 birds by throwing a stick up to the nest. He did so, where- 

 upon one young jabiru hastily opened its wings in the de- 

 sired fashion, at the same time seizing the stick in its bill ! 



