118 



WANDERINGS IN SOUTH AMERICA. 



The Bittern Along the cieeks and river sides, and in 

 the wet savannas, six species of the Bittern 

 will engage yonr attention. They are all handsome. 

 The smallest not so large as the English water-hen. 



In the savannas, too, you will sometimes 

 white Egrette s'^i'P^^^^ Snow- white Egrette, whose hack 

 is adorned with the plumes from which it 

 takes its name. Here too the spur-winged water-hen, 

 the blue and green water-hen, and two other species of 

 ordinary plumage, are found. While in quest of these, 

 the blue heron, the large and small brown heron, the 

 boat-bill, and Muscovy duck, now and then rise up 

 before you. 



When the sun has sunk in the western woods, no 

 longer agitated by the breeze ; when you can only see 

 a straggler or two of the feathered tribe hastening to 



join its mate, already at its roosting-place, 

 sucker ^^^^^ ^^^^ goatsucker comes out of 



the forest, where it has sat all day long in 

 slumbering ease, unmindful of the gay and busy scenes 

 around it. Its eyes are too delicately formed to bear the 

 light, and thus it is forced to shun the flaming face of 

 day, and wait in patience tiU Mght invites him to par- 

 take of the pleasures her dusky presence brings. 



The harmless, unoffending goatsucker, from the time 

 of Aristotle down to the present day, has been in 

 disgrace with man. Eather has handed down to son, 

 and author to author, that this nocturnal thief subsists 

 by milking the flocks. Poor injured little bird of night, 

 how sadly hast thou suffered, and how foul a stain has 

 inattention to facts put upon thy character ! Thou hast 

 never robbed man of any part of his property, nor 

 deprived the kid of a drop of milk. 



