Mosquitoes and Parasite Problems. 147 



Dendrocolaptine bird — Anumbius acuticaudatus — 

 much infested by an Ornithomyia, a pretty, pale 

 insect, half the size of a house-fly, and elegantly 

 striped with green. It is a very large parasite for 

 so small a bird, yet so cunning and alert is it, and 



Firewood-gatherer and Bird-fly. 



so swiftly is it able to swim through the plumage, 

 that the bird is unable to rid itself of so un- 

 desirable a companion. The bird lives with its 

 mate all the year round, much of the time with its 

 grown-up young, in its nest — a large structure, in 



