Ten Or Twenty Birds Lay In The Same Nest, And You Might Find In Them, At The One Time, Eggs Just Laid, Birds Recently Hatched, And Others Ready To Fly.

Sitting and rearing go on concurrently.

I procured a tame pair of this lovely breed of paroquets from the Guatos. Their prevailing color was emerald green, while the wings and tail were made up of tints of orange, scarlet, and blue, and around the back of the bird was a golden sheen rarely found even in equatorial specimens. Whether the bird is known to ornithologists or not I cannot tell. One night our camp was pitched near an anthill, inhabited by innumerable millions of those insects. None of us slept well, for, although our hammocks were slung, as we thought, away from them, they troubled us much. What was my horror next morning when the sun, instead of lighting up the rainbow tints of my birds, showed only a black moving mass of ants! My parrots had literally been eaten alive by them!

But I am wandering on and the ship is still aground on the reef! After much hauling and pulling and breaking of cables, she at last was got off into deep water. We had not proceeded far, however, when another shock made the vessel quiver. Were we aground again? No, the steamer had simply pushed a lazy alligator out of its way, and he resented the insult by a diabolical scowl at us.

Continuing on our way, we entered another body of hitherto unexplored water, a fairy spot, covered with floating islands of lotus, anchored with aquatic cables and surrounded by palm groves. On the shallow, pebbly shore might be seen, here and there, scarlet flamingoes. These beautiful birds stood on one leg, knee deep, dreaming of their enchanted home. Truly it is a perfect paradise, but it is almost as inaccessible as the Paradise which we all seek. What long-lost civilizations have ruled these now deserted solitudes? Penetrate into the dark, dank forest, as I have done, and ask the question. The only answer is the howling of the monkeys and the screaming of the cockatoos. You may start when you distinctly hear a bell tolling, but it is no call to worship in some stately old Inca temple with its golden sun and silver moon as deities. It is the wonderful bell-bird, which can make itself heard three miles away, but it is found only where man is not. Ruins of the old Incan and older pre-Incan civilizations are come across, covered now with dense jungle, but their builders have disappeared. To have left behind them until this day ruins which rank with the pyramids for extent, and Karnak for grandeur, proves their intelligence.

The peculiar rasping noise you now hear in the undergrowth has nothing to do with busy civilization - 'tis only the rattlesnake drawing his slimy length among the dead leaves or tangled reeds. No, all that is past, and this is an old new world indeed, and romance must not rob you of self possession, for the rattle means that in the encounter either he dies - or you.

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