500 HINTS TO ORNITHOLOGISTS. 



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 anything so extravagant 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 would not want it, for it has tremendous 

 spurs on its pinions, well adapted, and rightly placed, to punish an 

 opponent. 



Were we to estimate the powers of walking in the coots by the 

 outward appearance of their feet, we might inform the public that 

 " they are such bad walkers that they appear to stagger in their gait, 

 and that they walk with difficulty and unsteadiness." But when we 

 see them on land, every day throughout the winter, feeding on grass 

 with the wigeons, except in a great fall of snow, we have proof 

 positive, by their aptitude at walking, and by their velocity in running, 

 that our judgment has been rash and that our theory is unsound. 



We are informed that jays live more amongst the trees than upon 

 the ground ; and the arboreal propensity of this bird is inferred from 

 the shape of its toes. Now let it be remembered that, with the 

 exception of the short periods when garden fruits and acorns are 

 ripe, this bird must be upon the ground to procure a maintenance. 

 Here, where he is protected, he may be seen upon the ground at all 

 hours of the day. 



The common wagtail, too, is pronounced to be a " truly terrestrial 

 bird," on account of the formation of his toes. Come hither, and 

 you shall see the common wagtail in the daily habit of resorting to 

 the trees. 



Those who derive their knowledge of birds from the inspection of 

 their external anatomy alone, may write on the use of bristles at the 

 mouth of birds ; and they may tell us that in proportion as birds 

 partake of a vegetable and an insect diet, so are these bristles more 

 or less developed. But the fallacy of this theory is manifest in the 

 ordinary habits of the barn-door fowl, the wigeon, and many other 



