This same fish has the power of firmly
catching hold of any object, such as the blade of an oar or the
fishing-line, with the strong spine both of its pectoral and dorsal
fin. In the evening the weather was quite tropical, the thermometer
standing at 79 degrees. Numbers of fireflies were hovering about,
and the musquitoes were very troublesome. I exposed my hand for
five minutes, and it was soon black with them; I do not suppose
there could have been less than fifty, all busy sucking.
OCTOBER 15, 1833.
(PLATE 34. HEAD OF SCISSOR-BEAK.)
(PLATE 35. RHYNCHOPS NIGRA, OR SCISSOR-BEAK.)
We got under way and passed Punta Gorda, where there is a colony of
tame Indians from the province of Missiones. We sailed rapidly down
the current, but before sunset, from a silly fear of bad weather,
we brought-to in 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, formed by
trees intwined with creepers, gave to the canal a singularly gloomy
appearance. I here saw a very extraordinary bird, called the
Scissor-beak (Rhynchops nigra). It has short legs, web feet,
extremely long-pointed wings, and is of about the size of a tern.
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