74 Through the BraziHan Wilderness 



it was very pleasant. Near by stood other buildings: 

 sheds, and thatched huts of palm-logs in which the or- 

 dinary peons lived, and big corrals. In the quadrangle 

 were flamboyant trees, with their masses of brilliant red 

 flowers and delicately cut, vivid-green foliage. Noisy 

 oven-birds haunted these trees. In a high palm in the 

 garden a family of green parakeets had taken up their 

 abode and were preparing to build nests. They chat- 

 tered incessantly both when they flew juid when they sat 

 or crawled among the branches. Ibis and plover, crying 

 and wailing, passed immediately overhead. Jacanas fre- 

 quented the ponds near by ; the peons, with a familiarity 

 which to us seems sacrilegious, but to them was entirely 

 inoffensive and matter of course, called them "the Jesus 

 Christ birds," because they walked on the water. There 

 was a wealth of strange bird life in the neighborhood. 

 There were large papyrus-marshes, the papyrus not be- 

 ing a fifth, perhaps not a tenth, as high as in Africa. 

 In these swamps were many blackbirds. Some uttered 

 notes that reminded me of our own redwings. Others, 

 with crimson heads and necks and thighs, fairly blazed; 

 often a dozen sat together on a swaying papyrus-stem 

 which their weight bent over. There were all kinds of 

 extraordinary bird's-nests in the trees. There is still 

 need for the work of the collector in South America. 

 But I believe that already, so far as birds are concerned, 

 there is infinitely more need for the work of the careful 

 observer, who to the power of appreciation and observa- 

 tion adds the power of vivid, truthful, and interesting 

 narration — which means, as scientists no less than his- 

 torians should note, that training in the writing of good 



