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beautiful: they are usually found along the sea-coasts, 
and by the sides of the lakes. 
There is a small kind of eagle, with white plumage, 
to which the French gave the name of the ox eagle, 
from its following the cattle, and living on the flies 
which swarm around them. 
The Phenicopterus, or flamingo, is also found 
there, with its brilliant plumage : the native name is 
Samhe. 
The screech-owl seems to bear the same character 
for prescience as in Europe ; the natives call it Vau- 
rondoule , or “ Bird of Death,” and assert, that it 
smells from far those sick persons who are in a dying 
condition, and, hovering round the dwelling where 
they lie, utter their doleful forebodings, to the terror 
of the invalids and their relations. 
The spatula, or spoon-bill, is so called because 
the beak is like that instrument. 
Four species of teal are found in the rivers and 
lakes; and a species of coot, as large as a pullet, 
with violet plumage, and red feet, beak, and head. 
Wild ducks, and mallards, of a variety of plumage, 
are found in every part of the island near the rivers. 
The black and white heron also are frequently found, 
and many other aquatic birds, of which the native 
names alone being given, a detail of them would be 
tedious to the Reader. 
There is a bird, resembling the cormorant in size and 
appearance, which the French called the guardian, or 
pilot of the crocodile—we suppose, from its associating 
