Page:Panama-past-present-Bishop.djvu/40

20 that the birds of Panama have no song. I have often heard them in the mating season, at the beginning of the rains, chirping and twittering as gaily as any birds in the Northern woods. Most conspicuous of all, among the feathered folk of the Isthmus, are the great black buzzards and "men-o' warsmen," so named because they wheel about over the city in large flocks, manœuvering with the precision of a squadron of battleships. Formerly, these birds were the only scavengers, all refuse being thrown out into the street for them to eat. They will soar and circle for many minutes with hardly a beat of their broad wings. When the first aeroplane (a small Moissant monoplane), came to Panama and flew among a flock of buzzards, it was difficult for a man on the ground to tell the machine from the birds. Other large fliers are the pelicans, while tall, dignified blue herons and white cranes walk mincingly through the swamps. Parrots of all sizes abound, from big gaudy macaws, with beaks like tinsmiths' shears, to dainty little green parrakeets, that the engineers call "working-models of parrots." Tiniest and loveliest of all are the bright-colored humming-birds.

There are not many large mammals native to the Isthmus, and most of these have been hunted until they are now hard to find. The last time that a "lion," as the natives call the jaguar—a black or dark-brown member of the cat tribe, as big as a St. Bernard dog—was seen in the city of Panama, it was brought there in a cage and advertised to appear in a ferocious "bull and lion fight," at the bull-ring. When the cage door was opened in the ring, the jaguar jumped over the