The Blue Tanagers are clad in delicate, varying shades of pale blue; the Palm Tanagers in dull olive green, but both make up in noisy sibilant cries what they lack in color. The Silverbeaks are beautiful, shading from rich wine color to black, and with conspicuous silvery blue beaks. The little Seedeaters were the most familiar birds about the bungalow, coming to the steps to feed on fallen seeds. One of the first things which caught our eye were several brilliantly iridescent green birds, insect-catching, among the brush near the house. These were Paradise Jacamars,[85] and they had their homes in the clay banks of the rivulets, deep buried in the narrow valleys which abounded in the forest. Each bird had two or more favorite twigs. When bug-hunting flagged at one post they flew with a long swoop to the second point of vantage. Our assistant, Crandall, observing this, laid a limed twig across the lookout perch and in a short time had caught two male birds. Their mates called loudly for a time, then disappeared. Before night both had returned with new mates, which we left in peace. [Illustration: FIG. 78. ENGINE HOUSE AND FLUME OF HOORIE GOLD MINE.] They were tame and allowed us to approach within eight or ten feet before flying to their alternate perches. Their feet are small and weak and they have a hunched up look as they perch in wait, turning the head rapidly in every direction and now and then swooping like a flash after some tiny insect, engulfing it with a loud snap of the mandibles. Their call-note is a sharp, repeated _pip! pip! pip! pip!_ These birds welcome the clearing, as it means an increased supply of insect food. They learn the value even of the opening made by the fall of a single tree deep in the jungle, and here and elsewhere we noticed that a single pair of Jacamars would keep busy day after day in the patch of sunlight let in by the death of some forest giant. Jacamars form a rather compact group of some twenty species; in habit like Flycatchers; in appearance and nest like Kingfishers, but in structure more closely related to Toucans and Woodpeckers. Even in the short time which we spent at Hoorie we learned to expect a regular daily movement on the part of many of the birds. Early each morning a flock of about a dozen splendid Jays worked slowly around the edge of the clearing, at last disappearing behind the bungalow into the woods. In the north this would not be an unusual sight, but it must be remembered that members of the Jay family, like the Wood Warblers, are rarely seen in the tropics. Crows and Ravens are entirely absent from South America, and but two species of Jays find their way into British Guiana.