his voice, as at the noise of the hammer, the bird
raised its head, manifesting new and redoubled surprise, but without
any other movement. It seemed to think that the man and the gun were
one, and that its strange interlocutor possessed two different voices.

At last, by way of reply, it uttered a few shrill and prolonged cries,
accompanied by the rattling of its two horny mandibles. After which,
acting the great nobleman, cutting short the audience he has deigned
to grant, the toucan is silent, turns its head, proudly raises one of
its wings and busies itself in smoothing, with the point of its large
beak, its beautiful greenish feathers, variegated with purple.

At some distance from this spot, still following the margin of a
wooded hill, Selkirk sees other birds, some in their nests, others
warbling in the shade; all manifesting no more alarm at his presence
than did the toucan. Crested orioles, hooded bullfinches, alight to
pick up little grains or insects almost at his feet; humming-birds,
variegated cotingas, red manaquins flutter before him in the sunbeams,
pursuing invisible flies; little wood-peckers, black or green, hop
around the trunks of the trees, stopping a moment to see him pass and
then resuming their spiral ascent.

The confidence which he inspires is not confined to these winged
people. Upon a hillock of turf he perceives an animal, with pointed
nose, brown fur enamelled with red spots, and of the size of a hare;
seated on its hind paws, longer than those in front, it uses these,
after the manner of squirrels, to carry to its mouth some nuts of the
maripa, which constitute its breakfast. It is an agouti,[1] a mother,
her little ones are near. At sight of the stranger they run to her,
but quickly re-assured, quietly finish their morning repast.

Farther on, coatis,[2] with short ears, and long tails; companies of
little Guinea pigs; armadillos, a species of hedge-hog without the
quills, but covered with an armor of scales, more compact and
impervious than that of the ancient knights of the Middle Ages,
arrange themselves along the line of his route, as if to pass him in
review.

[Footnote 1: _Agouti_. An animal of the bigness of a rabbit, with
bright red hair, and a little tail without hair. He has but two teeth
in each jaw; holds his meat in his forepaws like a squirrel, and has a
very remarkable cry: when he is angry, his hair stands on end, and he
strikes the earth with his hind feet; and when