HINTS TO ORNITHOLOGISTS. 



315 



the ground. Having an uncommon liking for high 

 situations^ I often mount to the top of a lofty tree, 

 there to enjoy the surrounding scenery ; nor can I 

 be persuaded that I risk " life and limb" in gaining 

 the elevated situation. These, no doubt, are quali- 

 ties and propensities aberrant from the true human 

 type ; and^ according to the new theory, will at 

 once account for my inordinate love of arboreal 

 celsitude. 



There is a bird in Guiana named Kamichi. We 

 call it the horned screamer. On its head grows a 

 long, slender> and blunt kind of horn ; if horn it 

 can be called. We are informed, in a late publica- 

 tion, that the bird uses this horn as a means of self- 

 defence against its enemies. 



La Mancha's knight, in his wildest mood for pike 

 and helmet, never hit upon any thing so extravagant 

 as this. No bird ever makes use of the crown of its 

 head, or of any thing that grows thereon, as a means 

 of self-defence. Even if the horn on the head of 

 the Kamichi were of a texture sufficiently strong to 

 form a weapon of defence, still this bird would 

 not want it; for it has tremendous spurs on its 

 pmions, well adapted, and rightly placed, to punish 

 an opponent. 



Were we to estimate the powers of walking in the 

 coots by the outward appearance of their feet, we 

 might inform the public that " they are such bad 

 walkers that they appear to stagger in their gait, and 

 that they walk with difficulty and unsteadiness." 

 But when we see them on land, every day through- 

 out the winter, feeding on grass with the wigeons. 



