198 
Through the Brazilian li''ildcnicS<! 
were magnificent Hyacinth Macaws; Green Parrots, with red 
splashes; Toucans with varied plumage — black, white, red, 
yellow; Green Jamcars; flaming Orioles and both Blue and dark 
Red Tanagers. It was an extraordinary collection. All were 
noisy .... The assembly dispersed as we rode up; the 
huge blue macaws departed in pairs, uttering their hoarse 
" ar-rah-h, ar-rah-h.' 
" The water-birds were always a delight .... I 
killed a WoodTbis on the wing .... Kermit shot a 
Jabiru .... One day we found the nest of a Jabiru in a 
mighty fig-tree, on the edge of a patch of jungle. It was a 
big platform of sticks placed on a horizontal branch. There 
were four half-grown young standing on it. We passed it in 
the morning when both parents were also perched alongside 
. Near the ranch-house, walking familiarly among 
the cattle, we saw the big, deep-billed Ani Blackbirds.* They 
feed on the insects disturbed by the hoofs of the cattle, and 
often cling to them and pick off the ticks. It was the end of 
the nesting-season, and we did not find their curious communal 
nests, in which half-a-dozen females lay their eggs indiscrimin- 
ately. The common Ibises in the pond near by — which usually 
went in pairs, instead of in flocks like the Wood-Ibis — were very 
tame, and so were the Night Herons and all the small herons. 
In flying the storks and ibises stretch the neck straight in front 
of them. The jabiru — a splendid bird on the wing — also 
stretches out the neck in front, but there appears to be a slight 
downward curve at the base of the neck, which may be due 
merely to the craw. The big slender herons, on the contrary, 
bend the neck back in a beautiful curve, so that the head is 
nearly between the shoidders. One day I saw what I at first 
thought was a small yellow-billed kingfisher hovering over a 
pond, and finally plunging down to the surface of the water 
after a school of tiny young fish; but it proved to be a bien-te-vi 
king-bird. Curved-bill Woodhewers, birds of the size and 
somewhat the colouration of the Veeries, but with long slender 
sickle-bills, were common in the little garden, back of the house ; 
their habits were those of creepers, and they scrambled with 
agility up, along, and under the trunks and branches, and along 
the posts and rails of the fence, thrusting the bill into crevices 
