creature could never be taken or killed, because it suddenly baffles all the designs of men, leaving them in the dark, by clouding that light[1]."
The existence of this animal is still believed. The Missionary Fr. Narciso y Barcel says, in a letter written in 1791, "I had scarcely reached Manoa before I began the commission with which his Excellency the Viceroy charged me, concerning the search of the carbuncle. I found a Pagan of the Pira nation, who has not only seen one, but has killed one, and thrown it away, through ignorance, as a thing of no value. He assured me that there were two kinds, one about a quarter, the other about half a vara high. The curtain, or lid, with which it covers its splendor, is, he says, a thing of exquisite plumage, and that it has on its breast spots of singular beauty. He called it in his
- ↑ History of Paraguay, &c. by F. Nicholas del Techo.
