178 
THE GOLDEN RIVER. 
red and blue macaws, conspicuous against the 
green leaves, looking for all the world like 
immense artificial flowers. Even there, on the 
edge of the tropic, they looked too brilliant to 
be natural. After that, as you went north, 
they were common, always in pairs. At the 
Falls of Guayra, surely one of the most 
stupendous sights of the world, where you have 
to wade out to one of the subsidiary falls to see 
the great Parana river hurl itself through a 
narrow gorge, macaws kept flying overhead, 
back and forward, two and two, visiting a rocky 
island which stands in the middle of the falls, 
looking with their long tails not unlike 
pheasants. 
Some part of our time on the Chaco had to 
be spent in getting birds for food. There were 
plenty. The birds had started laying, and 
naturally we shot no more than we required; 
but some we had to shoot. It may seem 
barbarous, but you have to do it in a wild 
country. Next to the bird called the pheasant, 
to be described later, our great stand-by was the 
partridge, big and small. The South American 
partridge is the tinamou, the common or small 
partridge being the Spotted Tinamou, and 
the big or red-winged partridge the Rufous 
Tinamou. The small partridge, on the wing, 
is exactly like ours, except that it is a fraction 
smaller and makes if possible more fuss and 
pother and clatter when it gets up. The big 
