90 THROUGH THE BRAZILIAN WILDERNESS 



those that we saw were quiet while they were feeding; but 

 ordinarily when they were perched among the branches, 

 and especially when, as in the case of the little parakeets 

 near the house, they were gathering materials for nest- 

 building, they were just as noisy as while flying. 



The water-birds were always a delight. We shot 

 merely the two or three specimens the naturalists needed 

 for the museum. I killed a wood-ibis, on the wing with 

 the handy little Springfield, and then lost all the credit 

 I had thus gained by a series of inexcusable misses, at long 

 range, before I finally killed a jabiru. Kermit shot a jab- 

 iru with the Liiger automatic. The great, splendid birds, 

 standing about as tall as a man, show fight when wounded, 

 and advance against their assailants, clattering their for- 

 midable bills. One day we found the nest of a jabiru in 

 a mighty fig-tree, on the edge of a patch of jungle. It 

 was a big platform of sticks, placed on a horizontal branch. 

 There were four half-grown young standing on it. We 

 passed it in the morning, when both parents were also 

 perched alongside; the sky was then overcast, and it was 

 not possible to photograph it with the small camera. In 

 the early afternoon when we again passed it the sun was 

 out, and we tried to get photographs. Only one parent 

 bird was present at this time. It showed no fear. I no- 

 ticed that, as it stood on a branch near the nest, its bill 

 was slightly open. It was very hot, and I suppose it had 

 opened its bill just as a hen opens her bill in hot weather. 

 As we rode away the old bird and the four young birds 

 were standing motionless, and with gliding flight the other 

 old bird was returning to the nest. It is hard to give an 

 adequate idea of the wealth of bird life in these marshes. 



