164 THROUGH THE BRAZILIAN WILDERNESS 



tack human beings precisely as they attack all animals, 

 and precipitate flight is the only resort. 



Around our camp here butterflies of gorgeous coloring 

 swarmed, and there were many fungi as delicately shaped 

 and tinted as flowers. The scents in the woods were won- 

 derful. There were many whippoorwills, or rather Brazil- 

 ian birds related to them; they uttered at intervals through 

 the night a succession of notes suggesting both those of 

 our whippoorwill and those of our big chuck-will's-widow 

 of the Gulf States, but not identical with either. There 

 were other birds which were nearly akin to familiar birds 

 of the United States: a dull-colored catbird, a dull-colored 

 robin, and a sparrow belonging to the same genus as our 

 common song-sparrow and sweetheart sparrow; Miller had 

 heard this sparrow singing by day and night, fourteen 

 thousand feet up on the Andes, and its song suggested 

 the songs of both of our sparrows. There were doves and 

 wood-peckers of various species. Other birds bore no re- 

 semblance to any of ours. One honey-creeper was a perfect 

 little gem, with plumage that was black, purple, and tur- 

 quoise, and brilliant scarlet feet. Two of the birds which 

 Cherrie and Miller procured were of extraordinary nesting 

 habits. One, a nunlet, in shape resembles a short-tailed 

 bluebird. It is plumbeous, with a fulvous belly and white 

 tail coverts. It is a stupid little bird, and does not like 

 to fly away even when shot at. It catches its prey and 

 ordinarily acts like a rather dull flycatcher, perching on 

 some dead tree, swooping on insects and then returning to 

 its perch, and never going on the ground to feed or run 

 about. But it nests in burrows which it digs itself, one 

 bird usually digging, while the other bird perches in a bush 



