Sackawinkis and Marmosets, 
291 
sucli a licad-covering set on it. Just as we turned one of tlie river Lends, 
there sat one'of these mighty birds upon tlie extreuie tip of a giant mora 
loolving proudly down on us. Sororeng y\'ho liappened to be in the fore- 
most corial took aim and shot: the king of lui-ds slowly spread out its 
huge wings and flew off to the Ivanges, llie ball having probably never 
touched it at all. The Maeusis called it (Juan and assured me tiiat it 
was the greatest enemy of the howling monkeys aiid that it dragged 
away deer and even children. It also hunts sloths and generally tears 
them away in pieces from off the clasped branch. Its nest, that it must 
be using several years, and which I onl^^ once saw, on a tree impossible to 
climb, is built upon the highest of theui : it was as big as the nest of the 
Myctcria. In British Guiana the bird is found only in the district 
around the head waters of the l'sse(juibo, and even here only very rai'cly. 
Its natural history is liut little known. 
686. The mountain scenery sun-ounding us had something uncom- 
monly beautiful about it. In isolated places the river had forcibly 
broken its way through the ranges, so that in these the mountain heiglits 
became its banks, while the i-idges themselves, extending farther back 
than others, formed surprisingly iK'autiful hollows covered with the most 
luxuriant foliage. This mountain-landscape proved still more lovely 
however as we came round a sharply ])rojecting declivity which turned 
the river eastwards, and one of such natural amphitheatres, as if cover- 
ed with a rosy red carpet, lay liefore us. Thousands of lieautiful trees 
that we first found on the Scabunk, a tributary of the Takutu, covered 
the slopes of the mountains and banks with their luight rosy-red bracts 
and small blue blossoms recognisalde a long way off. The Cahj- 
cophiflhim ^tanlcj/oninn Schoml). belongs indisputably to the most 
lovely ornamental trees of Guiana. Though among Ruhiaecae this 
■jinrticular iilant, as well as the Mui^sacnda and Pinchncya show the 
stalked leaf-like and coloured enlargement of one sepal, in no case does 
it take place to the same extent as with Coh/ropJrj/lhim^ Sfnulri/aninn 
where the sepals hide with their wealth of colour not only the un- 
nssuming corollas but even the lu'illiant green leaves. It is remarkable 
too that this braclilike ]iovtion of the calyx oulv commences to form 
after the bloom has fallen, but it then develops with unusual rapidity. 
6S7. The wood of this beantiful troo is uncomnionlv hard, of yel- 
lowish l)rown colonr and bitter taste. T firmly believe that it could be 
employed as a powerful febrifuge. The "Maeusis call the tree Dehpo- 
y eh . 
nSR. Heaps of the pretty SackaAvinkis (CnlJifliri.r firjiirra) and 
little Mhldfi monkeys {JTavalr ]\[i(ln-^), I\farniosrfff of the Golonists, had 
chosen the magnifi; eut foliage for a place of rendezvous and spr-ung 
sprightly and roguislily from tAvig to twig, lu't off the dark rosy red 
coloured bracts, probably in presumptuous wantouess, and thereby 
littered the ground with lovely leaves. 
GS9. Again to-day the continuous rain forced us to pitch our camp 
quite early, although a buig search had to be made before a small dry 
spot was found on the eastern bank. In the course of the afternoon an 
Indian again noticed an arrow shaft keeping on the move above the 
S 2. 
