FOURTH JOURNEY. 



243 



forests in the interior. It was the dry season, which 

 renders a residence in the woods very delightful. 



There are three species of jacamar to be found on the 

 different sand-hills and dry savannas of Demerara ; but 

 there is another much larger and far more beautiful to 

 be seen when you arrive in that part of the country 

 where there are rocks. The jacamar has no 

 me Jacamar. affinit y to tlie woo dpecker or king-fisher 



(notwithstanding what travellers affirm), either in its 

 haunts or anatomy. The jacamar lives entirely on 

 insects, but never goes in search of them. It sits 

 patiently for hours together on the branch of a tree, 

 and when the incautious insect approaches, it flies at it 

 with the rapidity of an arrow, seizes it, and generally 

 returns to eat it on the branch which it had just quitted. 

 It has not the least attempt at song, is very solitary, 

 and so tame, that you may get within three or four 

 yards of it before it takes flight. The males of all 

 the different species which I have examined have white 

 feathers on the throat. I suspect that all the male 

 jacamars hitherto discovered have this distinctive mark. 

 I could learn nothing of its incubation. The Indians 

 informed me that one species of jacamar lays its eggs 

 in the wood-ants' nests, which are so frequent in the 

 trees of Guiana, and appear like huge black balls. I 

 wish there had been proof positive of this ; but the 

 breeding time was over ; and in the ants' nests which 

 I examined I could find no marks of birds having ever 

 been in them. Early in January the jacamar is in fine 

 plumage for the cabinet of the naturalist. The largest 

 species measures ten inches and a half from the point 

 of the beak to the end of the tail ; its name amongst 

 the Indians is Una-waya-adoucati, that is, grandfather 



r 2 



