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Foreigners have settled there, and have introduced the cultivation of the coffee-tree, the cotton-tree, and the sugar-cane of Otaheite. The population has greatly increased at Carupano, in the beautiful valley of Rio Caribe, at Guira, and at the new town of Punta di Piedra, built opposite Spanish Harbour, in the island of Trinidad.
Presently I had some visitors in a flock of urracas, or magpies, as they are called in the vernacular, or Guira cuckoos; a graceful, loquacious bird resembling a magpie, only with a longer tail and a bold, red beak.
Thus in every imaginable way they expose themselves and invite attack; yet, in spite of it all, I have never detected birds preying on them, and I have sometimes kept one of these black societies under observation near my house for several days, watching them at intervals, in places where the trees overhead were the resort of Icterine and tyrant birds, Guira cuckoos, and other species, all great hunters after grasshoppers.
At Guira de Helena, on January 4, 1896, the Cubans had to fight with their machetes to enter the Province of Havana.
It was a terrible tree to climb, yet, when a little older. I had to climb it a thousand times, since there were certain birds which would make their nests in it, often as high up as they could, and some of these were birds that laid beautiful eggs, such as those of the Guira cuckoo, the size of pullets' eggs, of the purest turquoise blue flecked with snowy white.
He buckled on the pipes, set the bellows under one arm, and the bag under the other, worked them both as knowingly as if he had been twenty years at the business, and lilted up 'Sheela na guira' in the finest style imaginable. All were in astonishment: the poor woman crossed herself.
Herds of deer roam in the open glades; droves of pigs are found in the forest somewhat similar to those of England; and a bird, the ynambu guazu, as large as a pheasant; while quails are seen in flocks in the esteros, with snipe, wild pigeons, and other birds. High up the River Parana is found the magnificent waterfall, El Salto de Guira, rivalling in splendour Niagara itself.
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