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Three times I went past the place before I could be certain, and even at the last I identified it only by the relative position of the giant tauroneero tree, in which I had shot many cotingas.

On opening the stomach of the humming-bird, dead insects are almost always found there. Next to the humming-birds, the cotingas display the gayest plumage. They are of the order of passeres, and you number five species betwixt the sea-coast and the rock Saba. Perhaps the scarlet cotinga is the richest of the five, and is one of those birds which are found in the deepest recesses of the forest.

Hence his name amongst the Indians. None of these three cotingas have a song. They feed on the hitia, siloabali- and bastard siloabali-seeds, the wild guava, the fig, and other fruit-trees of the forest. They are easily shot in these trees during the months of December, January and part of February. The greater part of them disappear after this, and probably retire far away to breed.

There were notes and cries familiar to me as the crowing of the cock parrot screams and yelping of toucans, the distant wailing calls of maam and duraquara; and shrill laughter-like notes of the large tree-climber as it passed from tree to tree; the quick whistle of cotingas; and strange throbbing and thrilling sounds, as of pygmies beating on metallic drums, of the skulking pitta-thrushes; and with these mingled other notes less well known.

Then he is silent for six or eight minutes, and then another toll, and so on. Acteon would stop in mid-chase, Maria would defer her evening song, and Orpheus himself would drop his lute to listen to him, so sweet, so novel and romantic is the toll of the pretty snow-white campanero. He is never seen to feed with the other cotingas, nor is it known in what part of Guiana he makes his nest.

On the mountain heights, in the thick forests and open plains, wherever flowers and insects exist, there one or more species make their home throughout the continent. Lovely as are the humming-birds, the cotingas, belonging to the order of Passeres, and of which there are several species, almost rival them in beauty of plumage.

Crested orioles, hooded bullfinches, alight to pick up little grains or insects almost at his feet; humming-birds, variegated cotingas, red manaquins flutter before him in the sunbeams, pursuing invisible flies; little wood-peckers, black or green, hop around the trunks of the trees, stopping a moment to see him pass and then resuming their spiral ascent.

While the traveller in the Old World is astonished at the elephant, the tiger, the lion and rhinoceros, he who wanders through the torrid regions of the New is lost in admiration at the cotingas, the toucans, the humming-birds and aras. The ocean likewise swarms with curiosities. Probably the flying-fish may be considered as one of the most singular.

Though, like most of its tribe, it is sometimes seen in flocks, it never feeds with other species of cotingas. The witty Sydney Smith, remarking on the account Waterton gives of the campanero, observes: "This single bird then has a voice of more power than the belfry of a cathedral ringing for a new dean.

Next to the humming-birds, the cotingas display the gayest plumage. They are of the order of Passer, and you number five species betwixt the sea- coast and the rock Saba. Perhaps the scarlet cotinga is the richest of the five, and is one of those birds which are found in the deepest recesses of the forest.