VII 
THE SCISSOR-BEAK 
145 
of any object, such as the blade of an oar or the fishing-line, 
with the strong spine both of its pectoral and dorsal fin. In 
the evening the weather was quite tropical, the thermometer 
standing at 79 0 . Numbers of fireflies were hovering about, 
and the musquitoes were very troublesome. I exposed my 
hand for five minutes, and it was soon black with them ; I do 
not suppose there could have been less than fifty, all busy 
sucking. 
October 1 5 th .—We got under way and passed Punta Gorda, 
HEAD OF SCISSOR-BEAK. 
RHYNCHOPS NIGRA, OR SCISSOR-BEAK. 
where there is a colony of tame Indians from the province of 
Missiones. We sailed rapidly down the current, but before 
sunset, from a silly fear of bad weather, we brought-to in a 
narrow arm of the river. I took the boat and rowed some 
distance up this creek. It was very narrow, winding, and deep; 
on each side a wall thirty or forty feet high, formed by trees 
intwined with creepers, gave to the canal a singularly gloomy 
appearance. I here saw a very extraordinary bird, called the 
Scissor-beak (Rhynchops nigra). It has short legs, web feet, 
extremely long-pointed wings, and is of about the size of a tern. 
L 
