190 WANDERINGS IN SOUTH AMERICA. 



species weaving their pendulous nests on one side of atfee, 

 while numbers of the other species are busy in forming 

 theirs on the opposite side of the same tree. Though such 

 near neighbours, the females are never observed to kick up 

 a row, or come to blows ! 



Another species of cassique, as large as a crow, is very 

 common in the plantations. In the morning, he generally 

 repairs to a large tree, and there, with his tail spread over 

 his back, and shaking his lowered wings, he produces notes, 

 which though they cannot be said to amount to a song, still 

 have something very sweet and pleasing in tliem. He 

 makes his nest in the same form as the other cassiques. 

 It is above four feet long ; and when you pass under the 

 tree, which often contains fifty or sixty of them, you can- 

 not help stopping to admire them as they wave to and fro, 

 the sport of every storm and breeze. The rump is chest- 

 nut ; ten feathers of the tail are a fine yellow, the remaining 

 two, which are the middle ones, are black, and an inch 

 shorter than the others. His bill is sulphur colour ; all 

 the rest of the body black, with here and there shades of 

 brown. He has five or six long narrow black feathers on 

 the back of his head, which he erects at pleasure. 



There is one more species of cassique in Demerara, 

 which always prefers the forests to the cultivated parts. 

 His economy is the same as that of the other cassiques. 

 He is rather smaller than the last described bird. His 

 body is greenish, and his tail and rump paler than those of 

 the former. Half of his beak is red. 



You would not be long in the forests of Demerara with- 

 out noticing the Woodpeckers. You meet with them feed- 

 ing at all hours of the day. Well may they do so. Were 

 they to follow the example of most of the other birds, and 

 only feed in the morning and evening, they would be often 

 on short allowance, for they sometimes have to labour 



