260 
Through the Hraziliaii U'lldcrucss. 
Hummer, has its bill especially adapted for use in these queerly 
shaped blossoms, and gets its food only from them, never 
appearing round any other plant .... t he huge Jabiru 
Storks, stalking through the water with stalely dignity, some- 
times refused to fly luitil we were only a hundred yards off ; one 
of them flew over our heads at a distance of tliirty or forty yards 
The Screamers, crying curii-curu, and the Ibises, wailing dole- 
fully, came even closer. The wonderful Hyacinth Macaws, 
in twos and threes, accompanied as at times lor several hundred 
yards, hovering over our heads and uttering their rasping 
screams .... The downpour continued so heavily . 
. once the rain lightened, and half a mile away the 
sunshine gleamed through a rift in the leaden cloud-mass. 
Suddenly in this rift of shimmering brightness there appeared a 
flock of beautiful White Egrets. Wi-.i strong, graceful wing- 
beats the birds urged their flight, their plumage flashing in the 
sun. They then crossed the rift and were swallowed in tne 
grey gloom of the day. 
" Near the ranch-house, about forty feet up in a big tree, 
was a Jabiru's nest containing young jabirus. i ne young birds 
exercised themselves by walking solemnly round the edge of the 
nest and opening and shutting their wings. Their heads and 
necks were down-covered, instead of being naked like those of 
their parents .... I here were many strange birds about. 
Toucans were not uncommon. I have never seen any other 
birds take such grotesque and comic attitudes as the toucan. 
This day I saw one standing in the top of a tree with the big bill 
standing straight into the air and the tail also cocked perpendicu- 
larly. The toucan is a born comedian. On the river and in 
the ponds we saw the Firefoot, a bird with feet like a Grebe, and 
bill and tail like those of a darter; but, like so many S. American 
birds, with no close affiliations to any other species .... 
Herons of many species swarmed .... 
" The following day we descended the Sao Lourenco to 
its junction with the Paraguay, and once more began the ascent 
of the latter. At one cattle-ranch where we stopped, the 
Troupials, or big black and yellow orioles, had built a large 
colony of their nests on a dead tree near the primitive little 
