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Show 160 RIO PARANA. Oct. 1833. wandering about at night, is much tormen~ed by ~he. foxes yelping as they follow him. This is a cunous ~omCidence with the fact which is generally affirmed of the Jackals ~ccompanying, in a similarly officious mann~r, the East ln.dmn tiger. The jaguar is a noisy animal, roarmg much by mght, and especially before bad weather. One day, when hunting on the banks of the l!ruguay, I was shown certain trees, to which these ammals ~re said constantly to recur, for the purpose o~ sharpenmg their claws. I saw three well-known trees; m front the bark was worn smooth, and on each side there were d~ep scratches or rather grooves, extending in an oblique hne, nearly a ;ard in length. The scars were of di.fferent .ag~s. A common method of ascertaining whether a Jaguar IS m the neighbourhood is to examine these trees. I imagine this habit of the jag~ar is exactly similar to one, which may any day be seen in the common cat, as with outstretched legs and exserted claws it scrapes the leg of a chair. Some such habit must be also common to the puma, for on the bare hard soil of Patagonia I have frequently seen scores so de~p, that n.o other animal could have made them. The obJect of this practice is, I should think, to blunt r~ther than t? sharpen (as the Gauchos say), the points of their claws, whiC~ are so seldom used. The jaguar is killed, without much difficulty, by the aid of dogs baying and driving him up a tree, where he is despatched with bullets. Owing to bad weather we remained two days at our moorings. Our only amusement was catching fish for our dinner: there were several kinds, and all good eating. A fish called the "armado" (a Silurus), is remarkable from a harsh grating noise it makes when caught by hook and line, and which can be distinctly heard when the fish is beneath the water. This same fish has the power of firmly catching hold of any object, such as the blade of an oar or the fishingline, with the strong spine both of its pectoral and dorsal fin. In the evening the weather was quite tropical, the thermometer standing at 79°. N urn hers of fireflies were hovering about, Oct. 1833. SCISSOR-BEAK. 161 and the musquit~es were ver! troublesome. I exposed my hand for five mmutes, and It was soon black with them . I do kn?t suppose there could have been less than fifty, all b~sy sue mg. OcTOBER 15TH.~ We got under way and passed Punta Gorda, where there IS a colony of tame Indians fro th . f M' . ' m e provmce o Isswnes. We sailed rapidly down the current, bu: before sunset, from a silly fear of bad weather, we brought tom a .narrow arm of the river. I took the boat and rowed some distance up this creek. It was very narrow winding and deep ; on each side, a wall thirty or forty feet high' f~rmed by trees intwined with creepers, gave to the canal ~ sm~ularly .gloomy appearance. I here saw a very extraordmary bird, called the Scissor-ber.k (Rhyncops nigra). It has short legs, .web feet, extremely long-pointed wings, and is of ab~ut ~he SIZe of a tern. The beak is flattened laterally, t~at Is, m a pla~e at right angles to that of a spoonbill, or duck. It IS as flat and elastic as an ivory papercutter, and the lower mandible, differently from every other bird: is an inch and a half longer than the upper. I will here detail all I know of the habits of the scissor-beak. It is found both on the east and west coasts, between lat. 30° and 45o, and frequents either salt or fresh water. The specimen now at the Zoological Society was shot at a lake near Maldonado ~rom which the water had been nearly drained, and which: m consequence, swarmed with small fry. I there saw several of these birds, generally in small flocks, flying backwards and f~rwar~s, close to the ~urface of the lake. 'rhey kept their bills Wide open, and With the lower mandible half buried in the. water. Thus skimming the surface, they ploughed it in their course : the water was quite smooth, and it formed a most curious spectacle to behold a flock, each bird leaving its narrow wake on the mirror-like surface. In their flight they frequently twist about with extreme rapidity, and so dexterously manage, that with their projecting lower mandible they plough up small fish, which are secured by the upper half of their scissor-like bills. This fact I repeatedly saw, as, VOL. III. M |