licately cut, vivid-green foliage. Noisy oven-birds haunted these
trees. In a high palm in the garden a family of green parakeets had
taken up their abode and were preparing to build nests. They chattered
incessantly both when they flew and when they sat or crawled among the
branches. Ibis and plover, crying and wailing, passed immediately
overhead. Jacanas frequented the ponds near by; the peons, with a
familiarity which to us seems sacrilegious, but to them was entirely
inoffensive and matter of course, called them "the Jesus Christ
birds," because they walked on the water. There was a wealth of
strange bird life in the neighborhood. There were large papyrus-
marshes, the papyrus not being a fifth, perhaps not a tenth, as high
as in Africa. In these swamps were many blackbirds. Some uttered notes
that reminded me of our own redwings. Others, with crimson heads and
necks and thighs, fairly blazed; often a dozen sat together on a
swaying papyrus-stem which their weight bent over. There were all
kinds of extraordinary bird's-nests in the trees. There is still need
for the work of the collector in South America. But I believe that
already, so far as birds are concerned, there is infinitely more need
for the work of the careful observer, who to the power of appreciation
and observation adds the power of vivid, truthful, and interesting
narration--which means, as scientists no less than historians should
note, that training in the writing of good English is indispensable to
any learned man who expects to make his learning count for what it
ought to count in the effect on his fellow men. The outdoor
naturalist, the faunal naturalist, who devotes himself primarily to a
study of the habits and of the life-histories of birds, beasts, fish,
and reptiles, and who can portray truthfully and vividly what he has
seen, could do work of more usefulness than any mere collector, in
this upper Paraguay country. The work of the collector is
indispensable; but it is only a small part of the work that ought to
be done; and after collecting has reached a certain point the work of
the field observer with the gift for recording what he has seen
becomes of far more importance.

The long days spent riding through the swamp, the "pantanal," were
pleasant and interesting. Several times we saw the tamandua bandeira,
the giant ant-bear. Kermit shot one, because the naturalists eagerly
wished for a second specimen; afterward we were relieved of all