326



Lord Brabourne,



There was no great variety of bird life ; nor were there great

numbers of any one kind ; but those, that were seen, seemed to fit

with the general atmosphere and surroundings—intensely tropical

in appearance. In fact the lack of bird-life on the large South

American rivers has been the subject of frequent comment. The

distances are too great.


Still one beautiful species is always present : the Blue and

Chestnut Kingfisher (Ceryle torquata), a bird about the size of a

Pigeon, is seen on all the South American waterways from Caracas

to Magellan (the Southern Argentine and Chilian form G. stellata is

slightly smaller). Indeed the bird seems to prefer the larger rivers

to those backwaters and sheltered “ riachos,” where the generality

of waterfowl congregate in swarms ; and is equally abundant on the

Paraguay River about Asuncion, as on the Orinoco below Ciudad

Bolivar.


A scene from the Island of Trinidad was memorable for the

numbers of one particularly gaudy species. Prom the town of

Siparia in the southern part of the Island runs a road through the

tropical forest to the coast. And all along this road at frequent

intervals were nesting-colonies of the Yellow and Black Cassique

(Gassicus cela, Persians). Their lively spluttering, bubbling notes

and the long nests swinging from the trees gave this road a

peculiarity of its own. The birds actually had a noisy colony in the

Church-yard of Sipari. Plere and there were to be seen the single

nests of the larger and non-gregarious Cassique (Ostinops clecumanus),

The nature of the vegetation is that of the “ High Woods ”

described by Charles Kingsley in “ At Last ” ; and the birds had

probably all deserted the surrounding district, to avail themselves of

the isolated trees, incident upon partial forest-clearing by man,

from which to hang their nests-


Birds of the Hawk family, though some species occur in

flocks especially on migration, cannot be considered as generally

gregarious. But sometimes hundreds may be seen together. The

scene is on the Paraguay River a few miles above Asuncion and on

one of those stretches of water hundreds of miles inland, the straitness

and breadth of which give the effect as of the river itself merging into

the horizon ; the glory of the great South American rivers. On the



