DIFFERENT KINDS OF PHEASANTS.
Birds are found in Paraguay which, in some respects, resemble European pheasants. The commonest species is the yacù. This bird is equal in size to a full grown hen; its feathers are of a very black colour, and its flesh extremely well tasted. It mostly frequents woods near a river or lake. At sun-set or sun-rise, you may find a number of them on one tree. When one is brought down by a gun, the rest do not fly away, but only recede a little farther on the bough which they are sitting upon, and there remain till they are all killed by repeated firings. This I have often witnessed, and wondered much that the birds were neither scared by the report of the gun, nor impelled to flight by the deaths of their companions.