224 TheNaUiralistinLaPlata. 
ornithologists have told ns almost nothing' about 
its strange character and habits. 
Though dressed with Quaker-like sobriety, and 
without the elegance of form distinguishing the 
swan or peacock, this bird yet appeals to the aesthetic 
feelings in man more than any species I am 
acquainted with. Voice is one of its strong points, 
as one might readily infer from the name : never- 
Crested Screamer: 
theless the name is not an appropriate one, for 
though the bird certainly does scream, and that 
louder than the peacock, its scream is only a power- 
ful note of alarm uttered occasionally, while the 
notes uttered at intervals in the. night, or in- the 
day-time, when it . soars upwards like the lark of 
some far-off imaginary epoch in the Avorld’s history 
when all tilings, larks included, were on a gigantic 
scale, are.'properly speaking, singing notes and in 
