THE OOLOGIST. 



ill the plains of Syria niid tleserts of At- ! 

 mott, and Balii(.)oda, tliat far aliove the car- j 

 avails, like specks in the milky way, whirl 

 the huge scavengers of the waste ; now far ! 

 out of sight, now sweeping lower as if to 

 scan the human atoms, his hoped-for ban- { 

 quet below. No scent is wafted aloft from | 

 the carcass, sun-dried to parchment in the 

 scoi-ching sand, and yet, as if from out of 

 the earth, the unclean birds flock to carnage. 

 Again, in South America, sitting on the 

 high eastei-n sjiurs of the Andes, at various 

 points between Santiago de Chili and (iiiito, 

 at a height of 10,OOo'fcet or 12,000 feet, I 

 have often watched, glass in hand, the huge 

 Condors sweeping in easy curves far beyond 

 tlie ken of valesmen below^, or with a mere 

 turn of the pinion gliding adown the air to 

 scan yet nearer their hunting grounds be- 

 neath, and "gars the cow run bellowing to 

 her calf.' Surely the lordly Condor. P^agle, 

 or Vulture, that keeps watch and ward over 

 desert and vale, in circles far beyond the 

 human ken, ever and anon swooping to seize 

 or spy f)ut his fearful cpiarry I'rom spheres 

 where no pai'ticle of scent could be borne 

 on the thin, dry air — sui-ely he cannot be 

 led l)y the nose, l)ut must rather be by the 

 eve." 



Ji\)7^eigix rj^trcls. 



The Bell Birds. 



Ch a Hill aril 1/ )i c/i «.s . 



UY F. .J. DAVIS. 



HERE are several varieties of these 

 .remarkable birds, all inhabiting South 

 America. The species I shall men- 

 tion first is the 



Tkue Eki.l Bird, — C. caruncalatvs. 



The plumage of this curious bird is snowy 

 white, and at the base of the bill is a rcr 

 markable wattle, which, when the bird i^ 

 under no emotion, hangs pendant, but when 

 startled or excited it inflates into a fleshy- 



horn about two inches long and half an inch 

 thick at the base. The female is smaller 

 than the male, and the watt'e proportion- 

 ately considerably less in size. For a des- 

 cription of the song I rei'er to Waterton. 

 probably the best authority. He sayf>; : 

 ''His note is loud and clear like the sound 

 of a bell, and may be heard at a distance of 

 three miles. In the midst of these exten- 

 sive wilds (of Demarara) generally on thr 

 \ dried top of an aged tree, almost out of gun 

 j reach, you will see the Camparicro (Beli 

 (Bird). No sound or song from any of th( 

 i winged inhabitants of the forest; not evefi 

 the clearly pronounced ''■mhip-poor-irilJ" o\' 

 the (lOatsucker cause such astonishment as 

 : the toll of the Campanero. AVith many n!' 

 ' the feathered race, it pays the tribute of u 

 morning and evening song ; and even when 

 the meridian sun has shut in silence the 

 mouths of almost the whole of animated nn- 

 ture, the Campanero still cheers the forest. 

 You hear his tfdl, and then a pause, and 

 then a toll again, and again <\ jiause ; then 

 he is silent for six or eiirht minutes, and 

 then another toll, and so on." He is never 

 seen to feed with the other Cotingas, nor 

 is it known in what part of Guiana it makes 

 its nest. 

 TriK l>AKi;-NECKiii> Bell Bhid, — C. ntid- 



irollis 

 Sometimes called the Blacksmitli by tlie 

 Brazilians, whose country it inhabits. It 

 : is pure white, excejit thebi'idles <ind thi'oiit, 

 : which are bare and the color of vei-digi-is ; 

 i beak black ; feet flesh pink. The female is 

 j not so large as the male ; throat and top of 

 I head black ; upper part of body green, un- 

 i der side yellow, spotted witii black and 

 streaked with white and yellowish lines on 

 the throat. The Blacksmith is one of the 

 most beautiful of the thousands of strange 

 occupants of the vast and magnifl<;ent Bra- 

 zilian forests. The elegant whiteness of it> 

 plumage affords a very striking contrast \i< 

 \ the rich green hues of the leafy covert- 

 Avhich it freciuents, its loud, dear note ring- 

 ing bell-like in the deep, solemn silence of 

 the woods, at regular intervals. Then it 

 is rapidly repeated, resembling at times the 



