Tame animals among the red men of America. 29 
change in colour. At any rate, there is no doubt that 
the yellow feathers are obtained from these birds by 
some kind of artificial treatment. 
One of the first occasions on which I saw many tame 
animals in an Indian settlement was at a place called 
Apooterie, inhabited by the various members of a family 
of true Carib Indians, at the junction of the Rupununi and 
Essequibo Rivers. There were more than a dozen par- 
rots of various kinds, two macaws, two trumpet-birds 
(P sophia crepitans) , two troupials (Icterus jamacii), 
several monkeys, a toucan, some powis or curassow 
birds (Crax alector), a sun-bird (Eurypyga heliasj 
and many others. And this was not a very unusual 
number for one settlement. 
The sun-bird interested me most. Of all English 
birds, it perhaps most resembles a snipe, only that it is 
much larger and much more slightly and gracefully built. 
Its colour is, I fear, indescribable. The general colour 
is a dark brown, but this is so exquisitely, delicately, 
and intricately banded, barred and spotted with other 
shades of brown, with yellow, white, black, and gray, 
and with orange-red, that the whole effect is a beautiful 
harmony of soft tints. It has a habit of gracefully spread- 
ing its large tail and wings to their fullest extent so as 
almost to hide its body under their cover. A skin of 
the dead bird as we see it at home gives no idea of its 
beauty ; but the living bird is so beautiful in colour, and 
graceful in form and motion, that it well deserves the 
name of sun-bird. 
All day long it moves about in a very slow and stately 
way, at an even regular pace. Every now and then, 
