THE MAGDALENA RIVE It. 77 



pots, and a supply of calabashes and turtle shells which serve as 

 dishes and spoons. 



In the afternoon we came to a portion of the river called " An- 

 gostura," or narrows, very narrow and swift, where even with a full 

 head of steam we barely crept along. Here I saw a great many 

 turtles and alligators, large flocks of macaws, and some roseate 

 spoonbills. Late in the afternoon we stopped for wood and I went 

 ashore, but did not take my gun. Lindauer took one of the guns, 

 and in a few minutes returned with two new birds. The first was 

 a very fine toucan, a female in good plumage. It was about the size 

 of our crow, had a very large, finely serrate beak which was bril- 

 liantly colored with black, Avhite^, green, blue, and yellow. Its eye 

 and the skin of its face were a beautiful peacock-blue, its feet light 

 blue. Its general color was black, breast, throat, and face light yel- 

 low, becoming Avhite on the cheeks, and separated from the black of 

 the under parts by a bright red belt. Its tail was black and square, 

 the upper coverts yellow, the lower bright red (Iiamjjhastos citreo- 

 Icemus. (See frontispiece.) The second was a parrot, the size of 

 a small pigeon, a female in poor plumage. Its beak was black Avith 

 a coral-red spot on each side, general plumage green, and head 

 and neck blue, ear-coverts black, a few rosy feathers among the 

 blue of lower throat, the four central tail-feathers green with blue 

 tips, the others blue, rosy at the base. The under coverts were 

 pink with blue stems and yellow tips, the edge of the wing pink 

 and yellow {Pionus menstruus). I found both the toucan and 

 parrot difficult to skin on account of the smallness of the neck. 

 The colors of the beak and skin of the toucan faded in a few hours. 

 The nostrils of the toucan were not in the beak proper, but in the 

 crease between the base of the beak and the frontal feathers. The 

 "pope's nose" of the toucan was longer than that of any bird that 

 I have skinned, and it is so freely jointed that the bird can move its 

 tail in any position. It is OAvingto this structure that when roosting 

 the toucan can turn its tail over to cover its back and head. 



The boatmen killed in the woodpile here a scorpion, plain olive- 



