96 HEADWATERS OF THE PARAGUAY 



are the only stores which many of the country-dwellers 

 see from year's end to year's end. They float down- 

 stream, and up-stream are poled by their crew, or now 

 and then get a tow from a steamer. This one had a 

 house with a tin roof ; others bear houses with thatched 

 roofs, or with roofs made of hides. The river wound 

 through vast marshes broken by belts of woodland. 



Always the two naturalists had something of interest 

 to tell of their past experience, suggested by some bird 

 or beast we came across. Black and golden orioles, 

 slightly crested, of two different species were found 

 along the river ; they nest in colonies, and often we 

 passed such colonies, the long pendulous nests hanging 

 from the boughs of trees directly over the water. Cherrie 

 told us of finding such a colony built round a big wasp- 

 nest, several feet in diameter. These wasps are venomous 

 and irritable, and few foes would dare venture near birds'- 

 nests that were under such formidable shelter ; but the 

 birds themselves were entirely unafraid, and obviously 

 were not in any danger of disagreement vsdth their 

 dangerous protectors. We saw a dark ibis flying across 

 the bow of the boat, uttering his deep, two-syllabled 

 note. Miller told how on the Orinoco these ibises 

 plunder the nests of the big river-turtles. They are 

 very skilful in finding where the female turtle has laid 

 her eggs, scratch them out of the sand, break the shells, 

 and suck the contents. 



It was astonishing to find so few mosquitoes on these 

 marshes. They did not in any way compare as pests 

 with the mosquitoes on the lower Mississippi, the New 

 Jersey coast, the Red River of the North, or the 

 Kootenay. Back in the forest near Corumba the 

 natvurahsts had found them very bad indeed. Cherrie 

 had spent two or three days on a mountain-top which 



