242 MAN THE WEAKLING 



great blue ibis, a sound as of hammer-strokes on an 

 anvil, only more aerial, more musical; the frenzied 

 shrieks of the large ypecaha rail, several birds shriek- 

 ing in chorus, and the prolonged sad wailing cries of 

 the courlan, the "crazy widow" of the natives; but 

 other big loud-voiced birds were inaudible at that 

 distance — the scream of the great heron for example, 

 and the trumpeting of the Coscoroba swan, their 

 notes being without the shrill quality of the others. 

 A human being with a voice, proportionate to his 

 size, of the character of the bird voices I have 

 described, would be audible seven or eight miles 

 away in a still atmosphere. As it is, small as the big 

 birds are compared with the big great-voiced beasts, 

 their voices carry much farther, and the call of an 

 ibis will outdistance the roaring of stags and lions, 

 braying of asses and neighing of horses, bellowing of 

 cattle, howlings of "old man" araguatos, monkeys 

 and wolves, and screaming of hysenas. 



But we, poor human creatures, the weaklings of 

 the animal world, are surpassed in the same way in 

 all physical powers and keenness of senses. A man 

 with the strength of an ant or beetle would be able 

 to place himself under a road engine, and raising it 

 on his back, walk to the Thames Embankment, and 

 throw it into the river. 



The swifts, or devilings, have been ingeminating 

 this mournful truth of our inferiority in my ears all 

 day long, here where I am writing this chapter, in 

 Penzance, in the month of June. There are eight 

 of them; they arrived in May, and elected to spend 



