, after
arranging his machine, he asked Harper to rouse the young birds by
throwing a stick up to the nest. He did so, whereupon one young jabiru
hastily opened its wings in the desired fashion, at the same time
seizing the stick in its bill! It dropped it at once, with an air of
comic disappointment, when it found that the stick was not edible.

There were many strange birds round about. Toucans were not uncommon.
I have never seen any other bird take such grotesque and comic
attitudes as the toucan. This day I saw one standing in the top of a
tree with the big bill pointing straight into the air and the tail
also cocked perpendicularly. The toucan is a born comedian. On the
river and in the ponds we saw the finfoot, a bird with feet like a
grebe and bill and tail like those of a darter, but, like so many
South American birds, with no close affiliations among other species.
The exceedingly rich bird fauna of South America contains many species
which seem to be survivals from a very remote geologic past, whose
kinsfolk have perished under the changed conditions of recent ages;
and in the case of many, like the hoatzin and screamer, their like is
not known elsewhere. Herons of many species swarmed in this
neighborhood. The handsomest was the richly colored tiger bittern. Two
other species were so unlike ordinary herons that I did not recognize
them as herons at all until Cherrie told me what they were. One had a
dark body, a white-speckled or ocellated neck, and a bill almost like
that of an ibis. The other looked white, but was really mauve-colored,
with black on the head. When perched on a tree it stood like an ibis;
and instead of the measured wing-beats characteristic of a heron's
flight, it flew with a quick, vigorous flapping of the wings. There
were queer mammals, too, as well as birds. In the fields Miller
trapped mice of a kind entirely new.

Next morning the sky was leaden, and a drenching rain fell as we began
our descent of the river. The rainy season had fairly begun. For our
good fortune we were still where we had the cabins aboard the boat,
and the ranch-house, in which to dry our clothes and soggy shoes; but
in the intensely humid atmosphere, hot and steaming, they stayed wet a
long time, and were still moist when we put them on again. Before we
left the house where we had been treated with such courteous
hospitality--the finest ranch-house in Matto Grosso, on a huge ranch
where there are some sixty tho