68 



A FLYING TRIP TO THE TROPICS. 



After the boat started, I was busy for several hours skinning the 

 birds. The macaws were especially troublesome, as the skin of the 

 neck refused to pass over the skull. 



In the afternoon the boat stopped again and we went ashore, but 

 it was so boiling hot that very few birds were stirring. Cabell, 

 who was some distance ahead of me, fired, and as I came up he 

 called out that he had killed a humming-bird as large as a tanager. 

 It was certainly a beautiful bird, and its metallic plumage and long 

 bill gave it a slight resemblance to a humming-bird. It was a jaca- 

 mar, brilliant metallic green and bronze above, including the two 

 central tail-feathers. The remaining tail-feathers and the under 

 parts were rufous. Its throat was white and was separated from the 

 breast by a band of the same color as the back {Galhula ruficaiida). 

 I saw here a pair of toucans, and got a shot at one, but failed to get 

 it or to see whether I had hit it or not. Its breast was dark red ; 

 its other colors I could not distinguish. I also saw in the forest a 

 number of dark reddish squirrels with white bellies. They were the 

 size of our gray squirrel and were extremely gentle, allowing me 

 almost to touch them with my gun-barrel as they sat watching me. 

 On my way back to the boat a bird fluttered up from the thick 

 grass in front of me, and I got it by a snap shot, but my heavy 

 choke-bore unfortnnately spoiled it as a specimen. It was a species 

 of whippoorwill, just about the size of ours, and, like ours, had 

 bristles along its gape. It had a white throat-patch, and beneath 

 was marked just like our night-hawk, but the ground color was 

 more reddish brown. Its wings and tail were somewhat like a 

 whippoor will's, the wings with a light buffy spot on the primaries. 

 Its back was mottled and the scapulars had buffy outer edges 

 {Nyctidromus albicoUis). Several times at night along the river 

 I heard the cry "whip-poor-will," and others very similar, but I 

 do not know what bird uttered them. 



At this place the steward of the boat came up to me with two 

 dirty white eggs just the size and shape of those of our yellow- 

 billed cuckoo. Showing them to me, he said, " azul, azul " (blue. 



