116 HEADWATERS OF THE PARAGUAY 



nets for protection against them at night. The country 

 is excellently suited for settlement, and offers a remark- 

 able field for cattle-growing. Moreover, it is a paradise 

 for water-birds and for many other kinds of birds, and 

 for many mammals. It is literally an ideal place in 

 which a field naturahst could spend six months or a 

 year. It is readily accessible, it offers an almost virgin 

 field for work, and the hfe would be healthy as well as 

 delightfully attractive. The man should have a steam- 

 launch. In it he could with comfort cover all parts of 

 the country from south of Coimbra to north of Cuyaba 

 and Caceres. There would have to be a good deal of 

 collecting (although nothing in the nature of butchery 

 should be tolerated), for the region has only been super- 

 ficially worked, especially as regards mammals. But if 

 the man were only a collector he would leave undone 

 the part of the work best worth doing. The region 

 offers extraordinary opportunities for the study of the 

 life-histories of birds which, because of their size, theii* 

 beauty, or their habits, are of exceptional interest. All 

 kinds of problems would be worked out. For example, 

 on the morning of the 3rd, as we were ascending the 

 Paraguay, we again and again saw in the trees on the 

 bank big nests of sticks, into and out of which parakeets 

 were flying by the dozen. Some of them had straws or 

 twigs in their bills. In some of the big globular nests 

 we could make out several holes of exit or entrance. 

 Apparently these parakeets were building or remodeUing 

 communal nests ; but whether they had themselves built 

 these nests, or had taken old nests and added to or 

 modified them, we could not teU. There was so much 

 of interest aU along the banks that we were continually 

 longing to stop and spend days where we were. Mixed 

 flocks of scores of cormorants and darters covered certain 



