thick foliage I could never make out; certain it is that they disappeared until evening, when they again woke the echoes with their cries before settling for the night.
About a week after our arrival, as the fruit ripened upon other trees, the birds greatly increased in numbers, and the air was filled with song and chattering throughout all but the noonday hours. The grey jays perched quite close to us when we were at work, turned their heads knowingly from side to side, and indulged in ribald remarks at our expense; and big toucans, with bright yellow breasts, flew clumsily from tree to tree, as though over-weighted by their great green-and-yellow bills. Sometimes an aurora, or yellow-breasted trogon, honoured us with a visit; less gorgeous in plumage than his relation the quetzal, he nevertheless possesses a fair share of beauty, and his dignity of deportment was imposing as for hours together he sat, almost motionless, solemnly contemplating us and our doings. Now and then the gurgling note of an oropendula rang through the grove, and this large cinnamon-coloured oriole, with yellow tail-feathers, would spend half an hour with us, flying from tree to tree and uttering his strange musical cry. The natives told me that there had been numbers of them about the ruins the previous year, as they then had a settlement close by in a tree overhanging the river, where their hanging nests had numbered over two hundred; but some ardent collector had cut off a branch with three or four nests attached to it, to carry home as a specimen, and the whole colony of birds had at once forsaken the tree and formed a new settlement some distance away. Our occasional visitor was doubtless one of the migrants who had ventured to come back to feed on the fruit-trees he had known of old.
I deeply regretted the disappearance of the colony, as it would have been delightful to watch the birds at one's leisure. Only once during our journey did I get the chance of watching them, and that only for a short time. As a precaution against attack, the birds always select for their home a tree with a long clean stem standing out from the surrounding vegetation, and a certain smooth red-barked tree with rather thin foliage seems to be an especial favourite. The long bag-shaped nests, with an entrance at the top, are attached to the spreading branches, and swing freely in the breeze. During the nesting-season such a tree-top is a scene of much animation. The birds are continually flying off in all directions in search of food for their mates or families and returning home with their prizes. They seldom hover round the tree, but go straight away as though each had his own well-known hunting-ground. Some few of them will perch for a while on the branches near their nests, and one old bird always stands sentinel on
