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indescriminately together Hawks, Tanagers, Umbrella Birds

(nasty black-looking flesh), and all birds down to Humming

Birds. Our Indians at Papallacta used to simply throw the

bodies for a few minutes into the centre of the fire without even

troubling to clean them out, and when they were just scorched,

tear them to pieces with their fingers and eat them, accompanied

by much laughter and joking. At some places we, too, were glad

of a pot (barring Hawks) of mixed birds, and one took one’s

chance of getting a tasty morsel or the reverse.


Around Guayaquil, and especially on the Island of Puna at

the mouth of the river, the tiny Psittacula coelestis was fairly

common, and at times could be bought in the town for twopence

or threepence each. These are lovely little birds and would

make a grand addition to our avaries at home. Its total length

does not exceed 4 inches. The head, throat, and cheeks are

bright light green, and a brilliant blue spot by the eye ; the nape

is greyish blue, but the back is rather a difficult colour to

describe, being what I call a greenish stone colour. The wings

are sapphire with a green edging to the primaries. The tail is

bluish green with the upper tail coverts turquoise, and the rump

bright sapphire blue. The breast and under parts are light

green. It will be seen by those who are unacquainted with the

bird, that it has a lovely arrangement of colouring. The back is

particularly soft looking, and the shade of sapphire one of the

richest that could be found in any bird. The female is easily

distinguished from the male, in the first place by being smaller

and the colours paler. She has very little blue on the rump and

none at all on the wings, and the breast and under-parts are very

yellowish. These birds are confined solely to Western Ecuador,

and are not found at any great distance inland. In the sandy

and rather barren country just around the Port of Manta, grew

some straggling acacia trees which they frequented in small

flocks. We also met with them again near Estneraldas, higher

up the coast. It is rather strange that on the Eastern side is

found the P. xanthops at an altitude of 5,000 feet, which most

remarkably resembles the Coelestis. It is half as large again, but

the only chief difference in the colouring is the face, which is

lemon instead of green, and the breast is greyish yellow. This

bird is not nearly so plentiful as the Coelestis , in fact it is rather a

rare bird.


At Santo Domingo we obtained some of the Bronze-

winged Parrots (Pio 7 ins chalcopterus) \ I believe it is also found

in Western Colombia. It is a curious looking bird and I was



