owbeat every dunghill fowl in the yard, and force the Guinea
birds, dogs, and turkeys to own their superiority.

If, kind and gentle reader, thou shouldst ever visit these regions with
an intention to examine their productions, perhaps the few observations
contained in these Wanderings may be of service to thee; excuse their
brevity; more could have been written, and each bird more particularly
described, but it would have been pressing too hard upon thy time and
patience.

Soon after arriving in these parts, thou wilt find that the species here
enumerated are only as a handful from a well-stored granary. Nothing has
been said of the eagles, the falcons, the hawks, and shrikes; nothing of
the different species of vultures, the king of which is very handsome,
and seems to be the only bird which claims regal honours from a
surrounding tribe. It is a fact beyond all dispute, that when the scent
of carrion has drawn together hundreds of the common vultures, they all
retire from the carcase as soon as the king of the vultures makes his
appearance. When his majesty has satisfied the cravings of his royal
stomach with the choicest bits from the most stinking and corrupted
parts, he generally retires to a neighbouring tree, and then the common
vultures return in crowds to gobble down his leavings. The Indians, as
well as the whites, have observed this, for when one of them, who has
learned a little English, sees the king, and wishes you to have a proper
notion of the bird, he says, "There is the governor of the carrion
crows."

Now, the Indians have never heard of a personage in Demerara higher than
that of governor; and the colonists, through a common mistake, call the
vultures carrion crows. Hence the Indian, in order to express the
dominion of this bird over the common vultures, tells you he is governor
of the carrion crows. The Spaniards have also observed it; for, through
all the Spanish Main, he is called "rey de zamuros"--king of the
vultures. The many species of owls, too, have not been noticed; and no
mention made of the Columbine tribe. The prodigious variety of waterfowl
on the sea-shore has been but barely hinted at.

There, and on the borders and surface of the inland waters, in the
marshes and creeks, besides the flamingos, scarlet curlew, and
spoonbills, already mentioned, will be found greenish-brown curlews,
sandpipers, rails, coots, gulls, pelicans, jabirus, nandapoas, crabiers,
snipes, plovers, du