There are several sloths common in the low-lying parts of the Guayana forests and similar regions of northern Venezuela, and the great-maned ant-eater or “ant-bear,” with the lesser ant-eater, is as often seen in Venezuela as in any part of South America, while Guayana is the centre of the small district in which the peculiar two-toed ant-eater is found. The _cachicamos_ or armadillos are much esteemed as food in the forest districts. The marsupials are represented by the _rabipelados_ or opossums and the _perrito de agua_ or water-opossum. The birds, being more commonly seen, are perhaps of greater interest than the mammals, and certainly many of the Venezuelan birds are beautiful, though, as frequently happens, what they gain in plumage they lose in song, and few have even a pleasant note. Beautifully coloured jays, the peculiar cassiques, with their hanging nests, starlings, and the many violet, scarlet, and other tanagers, with some very pretty members of the finch tribe, are all fairly abundant in Venezuela. Greenlets, some of the allied waxwings, and thrushes of various kinds, with the equally familiar wrens, are particularly abundant, nor does the cosmopolitan swallow absent himself from this part of the world. The numerous family of the American flycatchers has fifty representatives in Venezuela, and the allied ant-birds constitute one of the exceptions to the rule, in possessing a pleasant warbling note. The chatterers include some of the most notable birds of Venezuela, and we may specially notice the strange-looking umbrella-bird which extends into the Amazon territory, known from its note as the fife-bird; the variegated bell-bird, which makes a noise like the ringing of a bell; the gay manikins, whose colour include blue, crimson, orange, and yellow, mingled with sober blacks, browns, and greens; the nearly allied cock-of-the-rock is one of the most beautiful birds of Guayana, orange-red being the principal colour in its plumage, while its helmet-like crest adds to its grandeur; the hen is a uniform reddish-brown. The wood-hewers are more of interest from their habits than the beauty of their plumage.