Slow Signal Fade ebooks

I was much pleased with a brilliant little
red-headed mannikin, which I shot here (Pipra cornuta). There
were three males seated on a low branch, and hopping slowly
backwards and forwards, near to one another, as though engaged in
a kind of dance. In the pleasant airy woods surrounding the sandy
shores of the pool behind the town, the yellow-bellied Trogon (T.
viridis) was very common. Its back is of a brilliant metallic-
green colour, and the breast steel blue. The natives call it the
Suruqua do Ygapo, or Trogon of the flooded lands, in
contradistinction to the red-breasted species, which are named
Surtiquas da terra firma. I often saw small companies of half a
dozen individuals quietly seated on the lower branches of trees.
They remained almost motionless for an hour or two at a time,
simply moving their heads, on the watch for passing insects; or,
as seemed more generally to be the case, scanning the
neighbouring trees for fruit, which they darted off now and then,
at long intervals to secure, returning always to the same perch.


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