“A habitation sober and demure
For ruminating creatures: a domain
For quiet things to wander in; a haunt
In which the heron should delight to feed
By the shy rivers, and the pelican
Upon the cypress, and the pine in lonely thought,
Might sit and sun himself.”
In place of the heron and the pelican, however, we had the Urapongo—a large bird of the parrot tribe, which, like
“A flaky weight of winter’s purest snow,”
was clearly seen at a long distance in brilliant whiteness amid the dark green of a tree-top—sending forth its peculiar and solitary song, in notes as shrill and metallic as the gratings of a coarse file upon steel, of which they forcibly reminded me.