Book Notices and Reviews. 
173 
" the rest of the year. And day after dny and week after week we leai'ned 
" to know that they would be found in this or that tree and nowhere else : 
" they wei-e veritable feathered sloths. They feed chiefly ui)on leaves, but 
" fish also entered into the bill of fare of at least one individual. 
" We shot two, one for the skin and the other foi- the skeleton, and 
" we found the i)luniage in a very worn and ragt;ed condition, tlie wing 
" feathers especially so, whei-e the branches and leaves had rubbed and 
" worn away the barbs. Throughout the noonday heat these birds were 
" always to be found in the foliage overhanging the water, ready, when 
" disturbed to floj) and thrash a few yards through the mangroves and 
" bamboos." 
" Yklluvv-backkd Ca.s.-^ivi'k {Cuciriin pfi-.tic/is [Li/Ill. \ One of the first 
" things which attracted our attention were the Orioles or Ca.ssiiiues great 
" black and yellow beauties with whitish beaks and an infinitely varied 
"vocabulary. In the north oui- eyes were gladdened by the sight of a 
"single pair of Orioles flying about their nest in the elm ; here in a single 
" tree were sometimes over one hundred and fifty inhabitated nests* most of 
"which were two feet or more in length. The more we watched these 
" birds the more interesting they became. They showed a real intelligence 
" in the selection of a site for their nests. Monkeys, tree snakes, opossum 
" and other bird-eating creatures were numerous hereabouts .... 
"to conceal their nest successfully would be imi)ossible. So their houses 
" are swung out in the full view of all. But one or two precautions are al- 
" ways taken. Either the birds choose a solitary tree which fairly over- 
" hangs some thatched hut, or else the colony is close about one of the great 
" wasps' nests which are seen here and there high up among the branches 
" of the forest." 
" The Indian and native Venezuelans never trouble the birds, which 
" have been quick to realize and take advantage of this fact, and weave 
"their ne.sts and rear their young almost within arm's length of the 
" thatched roof s. No monkey dares venture here, and the mongrel dogs 
" keep off all the small canivores." 
" But a colony of Cassiques which chooses to live in the jungle itself 
"would have short shrift, were it not for the strange connnunal guardian- 
" shij) of the wasps. These insects are usually large and venomous, and 
"one sting would be enough to kill a bird ; indeed, a fierce fever often en- 
" sues when a man has been stung by half-a-dozen. So the birds must in 
" some wonderful way be immune to the attacks of the wasps 
" although the Cassiques cannot have learned from experience of the ter- 
"rible wounds which the wasps can inflict, yet they are keenly alive to the 
" advantages to be derived from close association with them." 
" The wasps nest is built far out on the tip of the limb of some 
" forest tree, and the long pendent homes of the Cassiques are placed close 
" to it, sometimes eight or ten on the same branch, and others on neigh- 
"bouring limbs, so near that the homes of birds and insects rattle against 
" each other when the wind blows." 
Very similar in form to the nest of Yellow Han^nest, figured in Vol. vii., p. G4. 
