a 









3 ei 
12 THE NATURAL HISTORY 
of each other, that if one dies, the other mourns 
and pines to ‘death near the place where it loft it 
‘partner. ‘Their legs are rather fhort, but their 
ie wings and tails are long. “They make their ne 
be: 33 of mud, at the foot of a tree, in the form ofa 
oven, Some fay, indeed, that they make their 
nefts among thickets, at a little diftance from the 
; ground; and others, that they build on high trees, 
| They lay two eggs. 
In the vaft continent of America the rivers are 
the largeft in the world; in the rainy feafons they 
overflow their banks; the water and mud which 
they leave behind form prodigious marfhes. Thefe 
marfhes are inhabited by fnakes of an enormous 
fize, by alligators, (which are the crocodiles of 
America,) by toads, hizards, and a thoufand other 
"ia creeping things; millions of gnats and infects 
of 
a {warm in the air, and draw together great flocks 
sare of birds of prey. 
aan In thefe vait and gloomy deferts nothing is 
pe heard -but their cries, and the croaking of the 





reptiles. 
_ » Among thefe noifes, the cry of the Screamer is 
- heard; it is loud and terrible. Yet, notwith- 
 ftanding its cry, and the fpurs which its wings are 
furnifhed with, the bird is very harmlefs, and 
sy aii feeds 

