70 Through the BraziHan Wilderness 



he had a rope for a bridle, and two or three toes of each 

 foot were thrust into Httle iron stirrups. 



The pools in the marsh were drying. They were 

 filled with fish, most of them dead or dying; and the 

 birds had gathered to the banquet. The most notable 

 dinner guests were the great jabiru storks; the stately 

 creatures dotted the marsh. But ibis and herons abound- 

 ed ; the former uttered queer, querulous cries when they 

 discovered our presence. The spurred lapwings were as 

 noisy as they always are. The ibis and plover did not 

 pay any heed to the fish; but the black carrion vultures 

 feasted on them in the mud ; and in the pools that were 

 not dry small alligators, the jacare-tinga, were feasting 

 also. In many places the stench from the dead fish was 

 unpleasant. 



Then for miles we rode through a beautiful open 

 forest of tall, slender caranda palms, with other trees 

 scattered among them. Green parakeets with black 

 heads chattered as they flew ; noisy green and red parrots 

 climbed among the palms; and huge macaws, some en- 

 tirely blue, others almost entirely red, screamed loudly 

 as they perched in the trees or took wing at our approach. 

 If one was wounded its cries kept its companions circling 

 around overhead. The naturalists found the bird fauna 

 totally different from that which they had been collecting 

 in the hill country near Corumba, seventy or eighty miles 

 distant ; and birds swarmed, both species and individuals. 

 South America has the most extensive and most varied 

 avifauna of all the continents. On the other hand, its 

 mammalian fauna, although very interesting, is rather 

 poor in number of species and individuals and in the 



