82 ON THE GEOGRAPHY OF ANIMALS. 
(Fluvicoline Sw.), analogous to our wagtails, run along 
the sides of the rivers and lagoons, bent on the same 
pursuit, and perpetually wagging their tails: the very 
singular genus Alec. 
turus (fig. 32.), called 
the “little cock” by 
Azara, is found in the 
same situation, and 
_ has received this name 
2S {rom carrying its broad 
== and compressed . tail 
erect, like that of our 
domestic fowl. The beautiful little ground doves (Che- 
mepelia Sw.), frequent all the open tracts, and are com- 
mon even in the gardens and suburbs of the towns ; 
while the humming-birds, although more numerous in 
the interior, are nevertheless to be seen, wherever a tree 
is in full blossom, darting about among splendid butter- 
flies, and blue-winged bees, nearly as big as them- 
selves. 
(116.) Water-birds are very local: we did not meet 
with them in any abundance, in that range of coast we 
traversed between lat. 8° and 23° S.; but we are in-| 
formed by Mr. Hesketh, his Majesty’s : consul-general at 
the city of Para, directly under the line, that the swamps 
on the borders of the great river Marafion, extending 
for hundreds of miles, are filled with innumerable 
flocks of aquatic and wading birds, sheltered among in- 
terminable forests of reeds, as old, probably, as the 
creation. Here the splendid 
scarlet curlews are found in 
the greatest abundance ; and 
probably these haunts, im- 
passable to human feet, are 
irequented by nearly all the 
aquatic tribes of South Ame- 
rica. In nearly all the 
swamps ahh savannahs of Brazil is found the Martinico 
Gallinule (fig. 31.), or water-hen, whose dark purple 
