On the Upper Berbice River. 313 



West bank ; and the traveller who cares to moralise over 

 the flu6luations of human affairs will find here, perhaps of 

 all places in the colony, the fittest food for his refleftions. 



Along the broad and estuarine lower part of the river, 

 the banks are low and swampy, and are lined by a 

 variable shrubby growth, among which the chara6leristic 

 mucco-mucco of the swamps (Mo7itrichardia arbores- 

 cens), the courida (Avicennia nitidajj and the curious 

 " bundoorie pimpler" (Drepanocarpus lunatus) are con- 

 spicuous ; but further up, some distance above the limit 

 of the working estates, the river narrows considerably 

 and suddenly, and the banks become raised a few feet 

 and are lined by the common alluvial forest growth. 



It is in this lower tidal portion of the river, that one of 

 the most interesting problems of the Natural History of 

 the World, and certainly the most peculiar feature of 

 life in Guiana, is to be met with. This is the curious 

 reptilian bird, the hoatzin (Opisthocomus cristatus), 

 locally called anna, hanna, and stinking or Canje 

 pheasant. Here, and in corresponding parts of the 

 Canje creek, which opens into the river below the town, 

 and of the Abary creek, which communicates with the 

 Berbice by an etaboo, these curious birds may be seen 

 at all times of the year — jumping about and feeding on the 

 fruit and foliage of the mucco-mucco, courida and bun- 

 doorie pimpler, in the morning and evening ; and resting 

 in groups among the denser foliage, sitting on the pos- 

 terior margin of their carina sterni, during the heat of 

 the day. Here, on the spreading bundoorie pimpler, the- 

 various stages of their life history may be studied — from 

 the eggs, lying two or three together on the loosely 

 placed twigs of their conspicuously built nest, through the 



