3H 



TiMEHRI. 



young chicks, climbing about among the branches by 

 means of bill, feet and clawed wings, to the adult birds, 

 which in appearance are not unlike the common type of 

 pheasant, or, in terms of a colonial bird, a golden-tinted 

 brown maroodie. 



As to the distribution of the birds along the river, they 

 certainly are confined to this lower portion — not a single 

 specimen being met with along the higher reaches. 



Upwards to Coomacka, the features presented by the 

 country are somewhat more interesting owing to the 

 higher and more wooded banks, dotted at intervals with 

 the residences of settlers of various qualities, or made 

 conspicuous by the opening savannahs, as at Bartica, or 

 by some historic centre, such as at Fort Nassau, the site 

 of the old Dutch capital of the County. 



A very marked feature of the river is the inconspicu- 

 ous nature of the settlers' residences. With but few 

 exceptions, these are hidden away by, or built among, the 

 vegetation lining the river, there being but few of those 

 large and open clearings by the river side, which give so 

 marked a chara6ler to the scenery of the Demerara, and 

 present so inviting an aspe6t to these retreats of semi- 

 civilised life. On this account the river is rendered 

 correspondingly more monotonous in chara6ler; and it 

 seems to me by no means a fanciful idea, that the marked 

 unhealthiness of the region is in part attributable to this 

 lack of sanitary precaution. 



To one unaccustomed to such scenes, the windings of 

 the river constantly reveal pictures of great beauty — 

 long stretches of smooth lake-like water, shut in and 

 banked by raised forest-clad ridges, crowned by the deli- 

 cate foliage of the manicole palms {Euterpe edulis) or 



