The same beauty of plumage which characterises so many of the American forest-birds, adorns, likewise, the feathered tribes of the swamp and the morass, of the river and the lake. Nothing can exceed in beauty a troop of scarlet Ibises or deep red Flamingoes (Phœnicopterus ruber) on the green margin of a stream. Raised on enormous stilts, and with an equally disproportionate length of neck, the flamingoes would be reckoned among the most uncouth birds, if their splendid robe did not entitle them to rank among the most beautiful.
They always live in troops, and range themselves, whether fishing or resting, like soldiers, in long lines. One of the number acts as sentinel, and on the approach of danger gives a warning scream, like the sound of a trumpet, when, instantly, the whole troop, expanding their flaming wings, rise loudly clamouring into the air.
These strange-formed birds build in the swamps high conical nests of mud, in the shape of a hillock with a cavity at top, in which the female generally lays two white eggs of the size of those of a goose, but more elongated. The rude construction is sufficiently high to admit of her sitting on it conveniently, or rather riding, as the legs are placed on each side at full length. Their mode of feeding is no less remarkable. Twisting their neck in such a manner that the upper part of their bill is applied to the ground, they at the same time disturb the mud with one of their webbed feet, thus raising up from the water insects and spawn, on which they chiefly subsist.
Six feet high, and stately as a grenadier of the guards, the American Jabiru stalks along the banks of the morasses. His plumage is white, but his neck and head are black, like his long legs; his conical, sharp, and powerful black bill, is a little recurved, while that of the stork, to whom he is closely related, is straight. He destroys an incredible number of reptiles and fishes; and, being very sly, is difficult to kill.
The roseate American Spoon-bill (Platalea Ajaja) is particularly remarkable for his curious large beak, dilating at the top into a broad spoon or spatula, which, though not possessed of great power, renders him excellent service in disturbing the mud and seizing the little reptiles and worms he delights to feed on.
The Jacana (Parra jacana) possesses enormously long and slender toes, armed with equally long spine-like claws. While pacing the ground they seem as inconvenient as the snow shoes of a Laplander, and yet nothing can be more suitable for a bird destined to stalk over the floating leaves of the Nelumbos and Nymphæas, and to seek for water insects on this unstable foundation. The Jacana is found all over tropical America, and is also called the Surgeon, from the nail of his hinder toe being sharp and acuated like a lancet.
Although in the torrid zone we hardly ever meet with a single aboriginal species of plant or animal common to both hemispheres, yet the analogy of climate everywhere produces analogous organic forms, and when on surveying the feathered tribes of America, we are struck by any bird remarkable for its singularity of shape or mode of life, we may expect to find its representative in Asia, Africa, or Australia.
RHINOCEROS HORNBILL.
Thus the enormous beak of the toucan is emulated or surpassed by that of the Indian Calao, or Rhinoceros Hornbill (Buceros rhinoceros) whose twelve-inch long, curved, and sharp-pointed bill, is, moreover, surmounted with an immense appendage in the form of a reverted horn, the use of which belongs as yet to the secrets of nature. While the toucans are distinguished by a gaudy plumage, the Calaos are almost entirely decked with a robe black as that of the raven, and enhancing the beautiful red and orange colours of their colossal beak. Generally congregating in small troops, like the toucans, they inhabit the dense forests, where they chiefly live on fruits, seeds, and insects, which they also swallow whole, throwing them up into the air and catching them as they fall. The clapping together of their mandibles causes a loud and peculiar noise, which towards evening interrupts the silence of the forest. The flight of a bird burdened with such a load must naturally be short: they hop upon their thick clumsy feet, and generally roost upon the highest trees.