Personal Narrative Of Travels To The Equinoctial Regions Of America During The Years 1799-1804 - Volume 2 - By Alexander Von Humboldt And Aime Bonpland.
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They Are Killed
By Thousands In Their Passage Across The Rio Negro.
When they go
towards the equator they are very fat and savoury; but in the month of
September, when
The Orinoco decreases and returns into its bed, the
ducks, warned either by the voices of the most experienced birds of
passage, or by that internal feeling which, not knowing how to define,
we call instinct, return from the Amazon and the Rio Branco towards
the north. At this period they are too lean to tempt the appetite of
the Indians of the Rio Negro, and escape pursuit more easily from
being accompanied by a species of herons (gavanes) which are excellent
eating. Thus the Indians eat ducks in March, and herons in September.
We could not learn what becomes of the gavanes during the swellings of
the Orinoco, and why they do not accompany the patos careteros in
their migration from the Orinoco to the Rio Branco. These regular
migrations of birds from one part of the tropics towards another, in a
zone which is during the whole year of the same temperature, are very
extraordinary phenomena. The southern coasts of the West India Islands
receive also every year, at the period of the inundations of the great
rivers of Terra Firma, numerous flights of the fishing-birds of the
Orinoco, and of its tributary streams. We must presume that the
variations of drought and humidity in the equinoctial zone have the
same influence as the great changes of temperature in our climates, on
the habits of animals.
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