HINTS TO ORNITHOLOGISTS. 
315 
the ground. Having an uncommon liking for high 
situations^ I often mount to the top of a -lofty tree, 
there to enjoy the surrounding scenery ; nor can I 
be persuaded that I risk life and limb" in gaining 
the elevated situation. These, no doubt, are quali- 
ties and propensities aberrant from the true human 
type ; and, according to the new theory, will at 
once account for my inordinate love of arboreal 
i celsitude. 
ji There is a bird in Guiana named Kamichi. We 
' call it the horned screamer. On its head grows a 
Ij long, slender, and blunt kind of horn ; if horn it 
can be called. We are informed, in a late publica- 
tion, that the bird uses this horn as a means of self- 
defence against its enemies. 
La Mancha's knight, in his wildest mood for pike 
' and helmet, never hit upon any thing so extravagant 
as this. No bird ever makes use of the crown of its 
head, or of any thing that grows thereon, as a means 
of self-defence. Even if the horn on the head of 
the Kamichi were of a texture sufficiently strong to 
form a weapon of defence, still this bird would 
not want it; for it has tremendous spurs on its 
pinions, well adapted, and rightly placed, to punish 
I an opponent. 
j Were we to estimate the powers of walking in the 
[coots by the outward appearance of their feet, we 
I might inform the public that " they are such bad 
^ walkers that they appear to stagger in their gait, and 
I that they walk with difficulty and unsteadiness.'* 
But when we see them on land, every day through- 
[Out the winter, feeding on grass with the wigeons, 
