m^^ERARY. xli 



parolietl savannahs in the districts around, in dry seasons, where they 

 may find an abundance of food either in the small animals trying to 

 escape the flames, or in those that have been burnt or have been 

 suffocated with the smoke. It may be mentioned as a peculiar thing 

 that many of these and of other hawks, which ordinarily are regarded 

 as carnivorous, oarrion-feeding, or insectivorous, are often found w ith 

 practically little else of food content^s than fruit, seeds, or young leaves 

 and leaf-buds, which, while it may sometimes be due to a scarcity of 

 their ordinary diet, is certainly in others a condition of ordinary habit. 



Among some of the further villages, inhabited by the peoples calling 

 themselves Moiiikos, Sokorikos, Enkarikos, and Kwating people, there are 

 to be seen, suspended from the timbers of the houses, striking representa- 

 tions of such birds as the Muscovy duck, the swallow-tailed hawk, and 

 the herons and storks, in easily recognisable form, skilfully made up of 

 coi'n-cobs, sticks, and string, the habits of the negrocop being even 

 indicated by the figure of a fish in its beak. It was interesting to note 

 how such forms as the heeri {Euxenura), the nigger-head (Mycteria), 

 the negrocop (Jahiru), the cocoi heron {Ardea), and the American egret 

 {Camerodius) were marked off by their size, the shape of beak, and the 

 colour of beak and legs. It would seem, therefore, that thsise birds are 

 familiar objects in these districts, from which it is not, in fact, a far 

 flight to Roraima, where the absence of some of them, as of others, 

 seems inexplicable except on the theory that they have only not yet 

 been procured. It may be mentioned, in relation to common names, 

 that on the coast the herons are usually known as " cranes " and 

 " gauldings " according to size and colour. Thus the cocoi heron (known 

 to the Indians as "honore") becomes the "blue or grey crane," the 

 large egret becomes the "white crane," while the snowy egret and 

 the blue heron are the "white gaulding" and the "blue gaulding" 

 respectively. 



In one of the nearer villages on the Upper Ireng river, I once saw 

 a young swallow-tailed hawk being reared entirely on large grass- 

 hoppers, of the genus Tropidacris (called by the Makushis "Sasa"), 

 which were plentiful in the locality, and were greedily eaten by the 

 bird, specimen after specimen being taken and quickly torn to pieces. 

 In another of these villages the two species of the beautiful fire-tailed 

 parrots [Pyrrhura) were kept in captivity. One of them is known 

 from Roraima, as no doubt the other will be later. In these less 

 accessible districts, far away from the common trade routes and 

 centres, birds and other aniinals in captivity were much less frequently 

 seen than on the lower savannahs, such as those about the Rupununi 

 river ; and I think it probable that the practice has been encoura.ged 

 and become established rather for the purposes of trade and bartter, 

 whether with travellers in the country or on the occasional visits of 

 the people to the coast, than from any I'eal appreciation or love of the 

 creatures themselves. 



The very beautiful kissi-kissi parrots (Aratinga) a.nd the kestrel are 

 much more common on the less elevated parts of the plateau than 

 about Roraima itself, the former being sometimes seen in flights of 

 several score, wheeling about in squa .Irons, as it were, and dashing 

 from copse to copse in the valleys, with pietx;ing cries. It is one of the 



