Three days of each week were devoted to hunting and fishing. Usually
the Indians went many miles away, in small parties, returning promptly
at the expiration of their time. The children rarely accompanied them,
and then only after having obtained special permission from the priest.
Upon their return they brought baskets of fish and meat--enough to
last them until their next journey into the wilds. Nearly all fish
and game were taken with bow and arrow. To secure the former they
selected a small creek up the shallow water of which huge shoals of
fish went to feed, and then shot them. After a sufficient supply had
been obtained they erected a framework of sticks, built a fire under it
and slowly roasted and smoked them; later they were packed in baskets
between layers of green leaves and taken home. They also brought
numbers of freshly killed animals for our examination, for in keeping
with his promise Padre Fulgencio had announced from the pulpit that
all creatures taken by them were to be shown to us first, and we were
permitted to select any that were of scientific value. In this manner a
number of animals new to us were added to the collection.
The curl-breasted toucan (_Beauharnaisia_) is one of those birds
of the Amazonian basin which is seldom seen by travellers, or even
naturalists, who make every effort to learn something of its
habits. Bates records having seen a number during his eleven years
of exploration, and on one occasion he was attacked by a flock after
he had wounded one of them. We therefore considered it an unusually
good streak of fortune to find a large flock inhabiting a section of
the forest several miles from the mission. They were wary, nervous
creatures, and spent their time in the top of tall trees from which
one of our men succeeded in shooting several with arrows before
the remainder took alarm and flew away; they never returned to the
locality. The bird is black above, with yellow underparts barred with
black; the feathers on the top of the head are flattened and curled,
resembling shining scales, and are drawn together to form a ridge.
On the throat and breast the brilliant yellow feathers are tipped
with glossy black dots, resembling beads of jet. Unfortunately they
were not nesting, but the Indians reported having found the two white
eggs in cavities in the taller trees. Another bird not frequently
encountered is the giant frogmouth (_Nyctibius_), which, while not
so rare, perhaps, is seldom seen, as it is nocturnal in habits and
spends the days squatting horizontally upon some thick branch, where
it resembles a gray lichen, or is altogether invisible. When the time
for domestic cares arrives the bird lays a single white egg on the
branch which has served as its perch, or at the junction of a limb and
the tree-trunk, without making any sort of a nest. Doubtless many eggs
roll off this precarious location and are broken. It feeds upon beetles
and insects which are caught on the wing, and some observers say that