244 



WANDERINGS IN SOUTH AMERICA. 



of the jacamar. It is certainly a splendid bird ; and in 

 the brilliancy and changeableness of its metallic colours, 

 it yields to none of the Asiatic and African feathered 

 tribe. The colours of the female are nearly as bright 

 as those of the male, but she wants the white feathers 

 on the throat. The large jacamar is pretty common 

 about two hundred miles up the river Demerara. 



Here I had a fine opportunity once more 

 t^TsMu 6 Q f examining the three-toed Sloth. He was 

 in the house with me for a day or two. 

 Had I taken a description of him as he lay sprawling 

 on the floor, I should have misled the world, and 

 injured natural history. On the ground he appeared 

 really a bungled composition, and faulty at all points ; 

 awkwardness and misery were depicted on his counte- 

 nance ; and when I made him advance he sighed as 

 though in pain. Perhaps it was, that by seeing him 

 thus, out of his element as it were, that the Count 

 de Buffon, in his history of the sloth, asks the question 

 — " Why should not some animals be created for 

 misery, since, in the human species, the greatest number 

 of individuals are devoted to pain from the moment of 

 their existence ? " Were the question put to me, I 

 would answer, I cannot conceive that any of them are 

 created for misery. That thousands live in misery there 

 can be, no doubt ; but then, misery has overtaken them 

 in their path through life, and wherever man has come 

 up with them, I should suppose they have seldom 

 escaped from experiencing a certain proportion of 

 misery. 



After fully satisfying myself that it only leads the 

 world into error to describe the sloth while he is on 

 ■the ground, or in any place except in a tree, I carried- 



