124 WANDERINGS IN SOUTH AMERICA. 



very handsome, and seems to be the only bird which 

 claims regal honours from a surrounding tribe. It is a 

 fact beyond all dispute, that when the scent of carrion 

 has drawn together hundreds of the common vultures, 

 they all retire from the carcase as soon as the king of 

 the vultures makes his appearance. When his majesty 

 has satisfied the cravings of his royal stomach with the 

 choicest bits from the most stinking and corrupted parts, 

 he generally retires to a neighbouring tree, and then the 

 common vultures return in crowds to gobble down his 

 leavings. The Indians, as well as the Whites, have 

 observed this ; for when one of them, who has learned 

 a little English, sees the king, and wishes you to have 

 a proper notion of the bird, he says, There is the 

 governor of the carrion crows." 



l^ow, the Indians have never heard of a personage in 

 Demerara higher than that of governor ; and the colo- 

 nists, through a common mistake, call the vultures 

 carrion crows. Hence the Indian, in order to express 

 the dominion of this bird over the common vultures, 

 tells you he is governor of the carrion crows. The 

 Spaniards have also observed it, for, through all the 

 Spanish Main, he is called Eey de Zamuros, king of the 

 vultures. The many species of owls, too, have not been 

 noticed ; and no mention made of the columbine tribe. 

 The prodigious variety of water fowl, on the sea-shore, 

 has been but barely hinted at. 



There, and on the borders and surface of the inland 

 waters, in the marshes and creeks, besides the flamingos, 

 scarlet curlew, and spoonbills, already mentioned, will 

 be found ; greenish-brown curlews, sand-pipers, rails, 

 coots, gulls, pelicans, jabirus, nandapoas, crabiers, snipes, 

 plovers, ducks, geese, cranes, and anhingas ; most of 



