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:-s NOTES OF A BOTANIST
3 I
reloaded three or four times that the survivors took
and flew off.
wing
On the slopes of the volcano Tunguragua, the
steepest and most symmetrical cone, though not the
loftiest, of the Quitonian Andes, I have seen flocks
of another Turkey (allied to, but distinct from, the
Uru-mutiin of Brazil) feeding on the plum-like
drupes of the
1
Motilon, and on the berries of an
undescribed Melastome. Besides these fruit-trees,
there were also numerous fruit-bearing bushes near,
including some true Brambles, \Yhortleberries, and
a Hawthorn, all of which probably afforded food to
the turkeys. This species seems to inhabit a zone,
between 6000 and 10,000 feet, on the wooded
flanks of Tunguragua, and within those limits to
make the perpetual round of the mountain, being
always
ripe ;
found on that side where there is most
fruit to be had and the birds are so tame and
sluggish when feeding that the Indians easily kill
them with sticks.
I should suppose that these and other gallinaceous
birds have their fixed centres of resort
(breeding- and roosting-places), from which they
never
know,
stray far. Many
have. On the
Parrots
western
and Macaws, I
slopes of the
Quitonian Andes, immense Hocks of Parrots ascend
by day to a height of 8000 or 9000 feet, where
they ravage the fields of maize and other grain, but
always descend to certain warm wrooded valleys, at
2000 to 4000 feet, to roost. The flights of vast
multitudes of garrulous parrots and macaws to and
fro between their roosting- and feeding-places, in
1 This name is given to Syiplocos ccnnia, H. B. K., and also to two (or
more) species of Hieronyma, all bearing edible drupes.