Wanderings in South America , page 89 by Charles Waterton
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to live by his labours. When Nature calls for support he repairs to the neighbouring forest, and there partakes of the store of fruits and seeds which she has produced in abundance for her aerial tribes. When his repast is over he returns to man, and pays the little tribute which he owes him for his protection. He takes his station on a tree close to his house, and there, for hours together, pours forth a succession of imitative notes. His own song is sweet, but very short. If a toucan be yelping in the neighbourhood, he drops it, and imitates him. Then he will amuse his protector with the cries of the different species of the woodpecker, and when the sheep bleat he will distinctly answer them. Then comes his own song again; and if a puppy-dog or a guinea-fowl interrupt him, he takes them off admirably, and by his different gestures during the time you would conclude that he enjoys the sport.
The cassique is gregarious, and imitates any sound he hears with such exactness that he goes by no other name than that of mocking bird amongst the colonists.
At breeding-time a number of these pretty choristers resort to a tree near the planter's house, and from its outside branches weave their pendulous nests. So conscious do they seem that they never give offence, and so little suspicious are they of receiving any injury from man, that they will choose a tree within forty yards from his house, and occupy the branches so low down that he may peep into the nests. A tree in Waratilla Creek affords a proof of this.
The proportions of the cassique are so fine that he may be said to be a model of symmetry in ornithology. On each wing he has a bright yellow spot, and his rump, belly and half the tail are of the same colour. All the rest of the body is black. His beak is the colour of sulphur, but it fades in death, and requires the same operation as the bill of the toucan to make it keep its colours. Up the rivers, in the interior, there is another cassique, nearly the same size and of the same habits, thoug