beings precisely as they attack all animals, and precipitate flight is
the only resort.

Around our camp here butterflies of gorgeous coloring swarmed, and
there were many fungi as delicately shaped and tinted as flowers. The
scents in the woods were wonderful. There were many whippoorwills, or
rather Brazilian birds related to them; they uttered at intervals
through the night a succession of notes suggesting both those of our
whippoorwill and those of our big chuck-will's-widow of the Gulf
States, but not identical with either. There were other birds which
were nearly akin to familiar birds of the United States: a dull-
colored catbird, a dull-colored robin, and a sparrow belonging to the
same genus as our common song-sparrow and sweetheart sparrow; Miller
had heard this sparrow singing by day and night, fourteen thousand
feet up on the Andes, and its song suggested the songs of both of our
sparrows. There were doves and woodpeckers of various species. Other
birds bore no resemblance to any of ours. One honey-creeper was a
perfect little gem, with plumage that was black, purple, and
turquoise, and brilliant scarlet feet. Two of the birds which Cherrie
and Miller procured were of extraordinary nesting habits. One, a
nunlet, in shape resembles a short-tailed bluebird. It is plumbeous,
with a fulvous belly and white tail coverts. It is a stupid little
bird, and does not like to fly away even when shot at. It catches its
prey and ordinarily acts like a rather dull flycatcher, perching on
some dead tree, swooping on insects and then returning to its perch,
and never going on the ground to feed or run about. But it nests in
burrows which it digs itself, one bird usually digging, while the
other bird perches in a bush near by. Sometimes these burrows are in
the side of a sand-bank, the sand being so loose that it is a marvel
that it does not cave in. Sometimes the burrows are in the level