THE LIFE OF THE ABARY SAVANNAS. 355 



vanna or perched on the shrubs along the bank. Small birds 

 showed no fear of it, often alighting in the same tree. From 

 almost every bush along the river bank little Guiana Green 

 Herons * flew up from their nests, built close to the surface 

 of the water. These herons "froze" like Bitterns when 

 they alighted, standing motionless with the bills at an angle 

 of 45°. Along the railroad they were semi-domesticated, 

 flying fearlessly in and out of the coolie yards, and snatching 

 bits of food from the very door-ways of the huts. 



About eleven o'clock, on rounding a sharp turn in the 

 river, we saw what appeared to be great expanses of burnt 

 marsh. On and on we went and at last we realized that we 

 were looking at vast phalanxes of Ducks. Suddenly, with- 

 out warning, a living sheet of birds rolled up from the ground, 

 hung a moment, then gained momentum and wheeled upward. 

 Thousands began to rise at once, until for fifty or a hun- 

 dred yards on each side of the river, there was an almost 

 unbroken wave of birds, flying upward and Ijackward. 

 From this mass of life, giving forth a medley of shrill whistles 

 which soon deepened into a perfect roar of wings, single lines 

 of ducks detached themselves, shooting out in all directions, 

 passing up and across the river, or right and left out over the 

 savanna. They were Gray-necked Tree-ducks ^^ with a plen- 

 tiful scattering of the Rufous " and a very few White-faced.^" 

 The great curving wave never ceased for a moment as we 

 approached, but widened and thickened and wheeled over 

 and behind us until the sky was pitted with their bodies. 

 I took picture after picture with my Graflex, the ground 

 glass reflecting a myriad of swiftly moving forms. 



Then the Ducks which had first arisen, having flown in a 

 great circle over the savanna, returned, and intersectmg the 

 newly arisen host, formed a criscrossing maze which carpeted 

 the heavens with a close warp and woof of living birds. Even 

 in Mexico, where we had watched the vast flocks of Ducks 



