The Naturalist on the River Amazons/Volume 2/Chapter 1

by Henry Walter Bates

 

CHAPTER I.

SANTAREM.

Situation of Santarem—Manners and customs of the inhabitants—Trade—Climate—Leprosy—Historical sketch—Grassy campos and woods—Excursions to Mapirí, Mahicá, and Irurá, with sketches of their Natural History; Palms, wild fruit-trees, Mining Wasps, Mason Wasps, Bees, Sloths, and Marmoset Monkeys—Natural History of Termites or White Ants.

I have already given a short account of the size, situation, and general appearance of Santarem. Although containing not more than 2500 inhabitants, it is the most civilised and important settlement on the banks of the main river from Peru to the Atlantic. The pretty little town, or city as it is called, with its rows of tolerably uniform, white-washed and red-tiled houses surrounded by green gardens and woods, stands on gently sloping ground on the eastern side of the Tapajos, close to its point of junction with the Amazons. A small eminence on which a fort has been erected, but which is now in a dilapidated condition, overlooks the streets, and forms the eastern limit of the mouth of the tributary. The Tapajos at Santarem is contracted to a breadth of about a mile-and-a-half by an accretion of low alluvial land, which forms a kind of delta on the western side; fifteen miles further up the river is seen at its full width of ten or a dozen miles, and the magnificent hilly country through which it flows from the south, is then visible on both shores. This high land, which appears to be a continuation of the central tablelands of Brazil, stretches almost without interruption on the eastern side of the river down to its mouth at Santarem. The scenery as well as the soil, vegetation and animal tenants of this region, are widely different from those of the flat and uniform country which borders the Amazons along most part of its course. After travelling week after week on the main river, the aspect of Santarem with its broad white sandy beach, limpid dark-green waters, and line of picturesque hills rising behind over the fringe of green forest, affords an agreeable surprise. On the main Amazons, the prospect is monotonous unless the vessel runs near the shore, when the wonderful diversity and beauty of the vegetation afford constant entertainment. Otherwise, the unvaried, broad yellow stream, and the long low line of forest, which dwindles away in a broken line of trees on the sea-like horizon and is renewed, reach after reach, as the voyager advances; weary by their uniformity.

I arrived at Santarem on my second journey into the interior, in November, 1851, and made it my head quarters for a period, as it turned out, of three years and a half. During this time I made, in pursuance of the plan I had framed, many excursions up the Tapajos, and to other places of interest in the surrounding region. On landing, I found no difficulty in hiring a suitable house on the outskirts of the place. It was pleasantly situated near the beach, going towards the aldeia or Indian part of the town. The ground sloped from the back premises down to the waterside, and my little raised verandah overlooked a beautiful flower-garden, a great rarity in this country, which belonged to the neighbours. The house contained only three rooms, one with brick and two with boarded floors. It was substantially built, like all the better sort of houses in Santarem, and had a stuccoed front. The kitchen, as is usual, formed an outhouse placed a few yards distant from the other rooms. The rent was 12,000 reis, or about twenty-seven shillings a month. In this country, a tenant has no extra payments to make; the owners of house property pay a dizimo or tithe, to the "collectoria geral," or general treasury, but with this the occupier of course has nothing to do. In engaging servants, I had the good fortune to meet with a free mulatto, an industrious and trustworthy young fellow, named José, willing to arrange with me; the people of his family cooking for us, whilst he assisted me in collecting; he proved of the greatest service in the different excursions we subsequently made. Servants of any kind were almost impossible to be obtained at Santarem, free people being too proud to hire themselves, and slaves too few and valuable to their masters, to be let out to others. These matters arranged, the house put in order, and a rude table, with a few chairs, bought or borrowed to furnish the house with, I was ready in three or four days to commence my Natural History explorations in the neighbourhood.

I found Santarem quite a different sort of place from the other settlements on the Amazons. At Cametá, the lively, good-humoured, and plain-living Mamelucos formed the bulk of the population, the white immigrants there, as on the Rio Negro and Upper Amazons, seeming to have fraternised well with the aborigines. In the neighbourhood of Santarem the Indians, I believe, were originally hostile to the Portuguese; at any rate, the blending of the two races has not been here on a large scale. I did not find the inhabitants the pleasant, easy-going, and blunt-spoken country folk that are met with in other small towns of the interior. The whites, Portuguese and Brazilians, are a relatively more numerous class here than in other settlements, and make great pretensions to civilisation; they are the merchants and shopkeepers of the place; owners of slaves, cattle estates, and cacao plantations. Amongst the principal residents must also be mentioned the civil and military authorities, who are generally well-bred and intelligent people from other provinces. Few Indians live in the place; it is too civilised for them, and the lower class is made up (besides the few slaves) of half-breeds, in whose composition negro blood predominates. Coloured people also exercise the different handicrafts; the town supports two goldsmiths, who are mulattoes and have each several apprentices; the blacksmiths are chiefly Indians, as is the case generally throughout the province. The manners of the upper class (copied from those of Pará), are very stiff and formal, and the absence of the hearty hospitality met with in other places, produces a disagreeable impression at first. Much ceremony is observed in the intercourse of the principal people with each other, and with strangers. The best room in each house is set apart for receptions, and visitors are expected to present themselves in black dress coats, regardless of the furious heat which rages in the sandy streets of Santarem towards mid-day, the hour when visits are generally made. In the room a cane-bottomed sofa and chairs, all lacquered and gilded, are arranged in quadrangular form, and here the visitors are invited to seat themselves, whilst the compliments are passed, or the business arranged. In taking leave, the host backs out his guests with repeated bows, finishing at the front door. Smoking is not in vogue amongst this class, but snuff-taking is largely indulged in, and great luxury is displayed in gold and silver snuff-boxes. All the gentlemen, and indeed most of the ladies also, wear gold watches and guard chains. Social parties are not very frequent; the principal men being fully occupied with their business and families, and the rest spending their leisure in billiard and gambling rooms, leaving wives and daughters shut up at home. Occasionally, however, one of the principal citizens gives a ball. In the first that I attended, the gentlemen were seated all the evening on one side of the room, and the ladies on the other, and partners were allotted by means of numbered cards, distributed by a master of the ceremonies. But the customs changed rapidly in these matters after steamers began to run on the Amazons (in 1853), bringing a flood of new ideas and fashions into the country. The old, bigoted, Portuguese system of treating women, which stifled social intercourse and wrought endless evils in the private life of the Brazilians, is now being gradually, although slowly, abandoned.

When a stranger arrives at an interior town in Brazil, with the intention of making some stay, he is obliged within three days to present himself at the Police office, to show his passport. He is then expected to call on the different magistrates, the military commander, and the principal private residents. This done, he has to remain at home a day or two to receive return visits, after which he is considered to be admitted into the best society. Santarem being the head of a comarca or county, as well as a borough, has a resident high judge (Juiz de Direito), besides a municipal judge (Juiz Municipal) and recorder (Promoter publico). The head of the police is also a magistrate, having jurisdiction in minor cases; he is called the delegado or delegate of police, from being appointed by and subordinate to the chief of police in the capital: all these officers are nominated by the Central Government. In a pretentious place like Santarem, the people attach great importance to these matters, and I had to go a round of visiting before I finally settled down to work. Notwithstanding the ceremonious manners of the principal inhabitants, I found several most worthy and agreeable people amongst them. Some of the older families, who spend most of their time on their plantations or cattle estates, were as kind-hearted and simple in their ways as the Obydos townsfolk. But these are rarely in town, coming only for a few days during the festivals. They have, however, spacious town-houses, some of them two stories high, with massive walls of stone or adobe. The principal citizen, Senhor Miguel Pinto de Guimaraens, is a native of the place, and is an example of the readiness with which talent and industry meet with their reward under the wise government of Brazil. He began life in a very humble way; I was told he was once a fisherman, and retailed the produce of his hook and line or nets in the port. He is now the chief merchant of the district; a large cattle and landed proprietor; and owner of a sugar estate and mills. When the new National Guard was formed in Brazil in 1853, he received from the Emperor the commission of colonel. He is a pale, grave, and white-haired, though only middle-aged, man. I saw a good deal of him, and liked his sincerity and the uprightness of his dealings. When I arrived in Santarem he was the delegado of police. He is rather unmerciful both in and out of office towards the shortcomings, in private and public morality, of his fellow-countrymen; but he is very much respected. The nation cannot be a despicable one, whose best men are thus able to work themselves up to positions of trust and influence.

The religious festivals were not so numerous here as in other towns, and such as did take place were very poor and ill attended. There is a handsome church, but the vicar showed remarkably little zeal for religion, except for a few days now and then when the Bishop came from Pará, on his rounds through the diocese. The people are as fond of holiday making here as in other parts of the province; but it seemed to be a growing fashion to substitute rational amusements for the processions and mummeries of the saints' days. The young folks are very musical, the principal instruments in use being the flute, violin, Spanish guitar, and a small four-stringed viola, called cavaquinho. During the early part of my stay at Santarem, a little party of instrumentalists, led by a tall, thin, ragged mulatto, who was quite an enthusiast in his art, used frequently to serenade their friends in the cool and brilliant moonlit evenings of the dry season, playing French and Italian marches and dance music with very good effect. The guitar was the favourite instrument with both sexes, as at Pará; the piano, however, is now fast superseding it. The ballads sung to the accompaniment of the guitar were not learnt from written or printed music, but communicated orally from one friend to another. They were never spoken of as songs, but modinhas, or "little fashions," each of which had its day, giving way to the next favourite brought by some young fellow from the capital. At festival times there was a great deal of masquerading, in which all the people, old and young, white, negro, and Indian, took great delight. The best things of this kind used to come off during the Carnival, in Easter week, and on St. John's eve; the negroes having a grand semi-dramatic display in the streets at Christmas time. The more select affairs were got up by the young whites, and coloured men associating with whites. A party of thirty or forty of these used to dress themselves in uniform style, and in very good taste, as cavaliers and dames, each disguised with a peculiar kind of light gauze mask. The troop, with a party of musicians, went the round of their friends' houses in the evening, and treated the large and gaily-dressed companies which were there assembled to a variety of dances. The principal citizens, in the large rooms of whose houses these entertainments were given, seemed quite to enjoy them; great preparations were made at each place; and, after the dance, guests and masqueraders were regaled with pale ale and sweetmeats. Once a year the Indians, with whom masked dances and acting are indigenous, had their turn, and on one occasion they gave us a great treat. They assembled from different parts of the neighbourhood at night, on the outskirts of the town, and then marched through the streets by torchlight towards the quarter inhabited by the whites, to perform their hunting and devil dances before the doors of the principal inhabitants. There were about a hundred men, women, and children in the procession. Many of the men were dressed in the magnificent feather crowns, tunics, and belts, manufactured by the Mundurucús, and worn by them on festive occasions, but the women were naked to the waist, and the children quite naked, and all were painted and smeared red with anatto. The ringleader enacted the part of the Tushaua, or chief, and carried a sceptre, richly decorated with the orange, red, and green feathers of toucans and parrots. The pajé or medicine-man came along, puffing at a long tauarí cigar, the instrument by which he professes to make his wonderful cures. Others blew harsh jarring blasts with the turé, a horn made of long and thick bamboo, with a split reed in the mouthpiece. This is the war trumpet of many tribes of Indians, with which the sentinels of predatory hordes, mounted on a lofty tree, give the signal for attack to their comrades. Those Brazilians who are old enough to remember the times of warfare between Indians and settlers, retain a great horror of the turé, its loud harsh note heard in the dead of the night having been often the prelude to an onslaught of bloodthirsty Múras on the outlying settlements. The rest of the men in the procession carried bows and arrows, bunches of javelins, clubs, and paddles. The older children brought with them the household pets; some had monkeys or coatis on their shoulders, and others bore tortoises on their heads. The squaws carried their babies in aturás, or large baskets, slung on their backs, and secured with a broad belt of bast over their foreheads. The whole thing was accurate in its representation of Indian life, and showed more ingenuity than some people give the Brazilian red man credit for. It was got up spontaneously by the Indians, and simply to amuse the people of the place.

The entire produce in cacao, salt fish, and other articles of a very large district, passes through the hands of the Santarem merchants, and a large trade, for this country, is done with the Indians on the Tapajos in salsaparilla, balsam of copaüba, India-rubber, farinha, and other productions. I was told the average annual yield of the Tapajos in salsaparilla, was about 2000 arrobas (of 32 lbs. each). The quality of the drug found in the forests of the Tapajos, is much superior to that of the Upper Amazons, and always fetches double the price at Pará. The merchants send out young Brazilians and Portuguese in small canoes to trade on the rivers and collect the produce, and the cargoes are shipped to the capital in large cubertas and schooners, of from twenty to eighty tons burthen. The risk and profits must be great, or capital scarce, for the rate of interest on lent money or overdue accounts is two-and-a-half to three per cent. per month; this is the same, however, as that which rules at Pará. The shops are numerous, and well-stocked with English, French, German, and North American wares; the retail prices of which are very little above those of the capital. There is much competition amongst the traders and shopkeepers, yet they all seem to thrive, if one may judge from external appearances; but it is said, that most of them are over head and ears in debt to rich Portuguese merchants of Pará, who act as their correspondents.

The people seem to be thoroughly alive to the advantages of education for their children. Besides the usual primary schools, one for girls, and another for boys, there is a third of a higher class, where Latin and French, amongst other accomplishments, are taught by professors, who, like the common schoolmasters, are paid by the provincial government. This is used as a preparatory school to the Lyceum and Bishop's seminary, well-endowed institutions at Pará, whither it is the ambition of traders and planters to send their sons to finish their studies. The rudiments of education only are taught in the primary schools, and it is surprising how quickly and well the little lads, both coloured and white, learn reading, writing, and arithmetic. But the simplicity of the Portuguese language, which is written as it is pronounced, or according to unvarying rules, and the use of the decimal system of accounts, make these acquirements much easier than they are with us. Students in the superior school have to pass an examination before they can be admitted at the colleges in Pará, and the managers once did me the honour to make me one of the examiners for the year. The performances of the youths, most of whom were under fourteen years of age, were very creditable, especially in grammar; there was a quickness of apprehension displayed which would have gladdened the heart of a northern schoolmaster. The course of study followed at the colleges of Pará must be very deficient; for it is rare to meet with an educated Paraense who has the slightest knowledge of the physical sciences, or even of geography, if he has not travelled out of the province. The young men all become smart rhetoricians and lawyers; any of them is ready to plead in a law case at an hour's notice; they are also great at statistics, for the gratification of which taste there is ample field in Brazil, where every public officer has to furnish volumes of dry reports annually to the government; but they are wofully ignorant on most other subjects. I do not recollect seeing a map of any kind at Santarem. The quick-witted people have a suspicion of their deficiencies in this respect, and it is difficult to draw them out on geography; but one day a man holding an important office betrayed himself by asking me, "on what side of the river was Paris situated?" This question did not arise, as might be supposed, from a desire for accurate topographical knowledge of the Seine, but from the idea, that all the world was a great river, and that the different places he had heard of must lie on one shore or the other. The fact of the Amazons being a limited stream, having its origin in narrow rivulets, its beginning and its ending, has never entered the heads of most of the people who have passed their whole lives on its banks.

Santarem is a pleasant place to live in, irrespective of its society. There are no insect pests, mosquito, pium, sand-fly, or motuca. The climate is glorious; during six months of the year, from August to February, very little rain falls, and the sky is cloudless for weeks together, the fresh breezes from the sea, nearly 400 miles distant, moderating the great heat of the sun. The wind is sometimes so strong for days together, that it is difficult to make way against it in walking along the streets, and it enters the open windows and doors of houses, scattering loose clothing and papers in all directions. The place is considered healthy; but at the changes of season, severe colds and ophthalmia are prevalent. I found three Englishmen living here, who had resided many years in the town or its neighbourhood, and who still retained their florid complexions; the plump and fresh appearance of many of the middle-aged Santarem ladies, also bore testimony to the healthfulness of the climate. The streets are always clean and dry, even in the height of the wet season; good order is always kept, and the place pretty well supplied with provisions. None but those who have suffered from the difficulty of obtaining the necessaries of life at any price in most of the interior settlements of South America, can appreciate the advantages of Santarem in this respect. Everything, however, except meat, was dear, and becoming every year more so. Sugar, coffee, and rice, which ought to be produced in surplus in the neighbourhood, are imported from other provinces, and are high in price; sugar indeed, is a little dearer here than in England. There were two or three butchers' shops, where excellent beef could he had daily at twopence or twopence-halfpenny per pound. The cattle have not to be brought from a long distance as at Pará, being bred on the campos, which border the Lago Grande, only one or two days' journey from the town. Fresh fish could be bought in the port on most evenings, but, as the supply did not equal the demand, there was always a race amongst purchasers to the water-side when the canoe of a fisherman hove in sight. Very good bread was hawked around the town every morning, with milk, and a great variety of fruits and vegetables. Amongst the fruits, there was a kind called atta, which I did not see in any other part of the country. It belongs to the Anonaceous order, and the tree which produces it grows apparently wild in the neighbourhood of Santarem. It is a little larger than a good-sized orange, and the rind, which encloses a mass of rich custardy pulp, is scaled like the pine-apple, but green when ripe, and encrusted on the inside with sugar. To finish this account of the advantages of Santarem, the delicious bathing in the clear waters of the Tapajos may be mentioned. There is here no fear of alligators; when the east wind blows, a long swell rolls in on the clean sandy beach, and the bath is most exhilarating.

There is one great drawback to the merits of Santarem. This is the prevalence here of the terrible leprosy. It seems, however, confined to certain families, and I did not hear of a well-authenticated case of a European being attacked by it. I once visited many of the lepers in company of an American physician. They do not live apart; family ties are so strong, that all attempts to induce people to separate from their leprous relatives have failed; but many believe that the malady is not contagious. The disease commences with glandular swellings in different parts of the body, which are succeeded by livid patches on the skin, and at the tips of the fingers and toes. These spread, and the parts embraced by them lose their sensibility, and decay. In course of time, as the frightful atrophy extends to the internal organs, some vital part is affected, and the sufferer dies. Some of the best families in the place are tainted with leprosy; but it falls on all races alike; white, Indian, and negro. I saw some patients who had been ill of it for ten and a dozen years; they were hideously disfigured, but bore up cheerfully; in fact, a hopeful spirit, and free, generous living had been the means of retarding in them the progress of the disorder; none were ever known to be cured of it. One man tried a voyage to Europe, and was healed whilst there, but the malady broke out again on his return. I do not know whether the dry and hot soil of Santarem has anything to do with the prevalence of this disease; it is not confined to this place, many cases having occurred at Pará, and in other provinces, but it is nowhere so rife as here; the evil fame of the settlement indeed has spread to Portugal, where Santarem is known as the "Cidade dos Lazaros," or City of Lepers.

When the Portuguese first ascended the Amazons towards the middle of the 17th century, they found the banks of the Tapajos in the neighbourhood of Santarem, peopled by a warlike tribe of Indians, called the Tapajócos. From these, the river and the settlement (Santarem in the Indian language is called Tapajós), derive their name. The Tapajos, however, amongst the Brazilian settlers in this part, is most generally known by the Portuguese name of Rio Preto, or the Black River. According to Acunna, the historian of the Teixeira expedition (in 1637–9), the Tapajócos were very numerous, one village alone having contained more than 500 families. Their weapons were poisoned darts. Notwithstanding their numbers and courage, they quickly gave way before the encroaching Portuguese settlers, who are said to have treated them with great barbarity. The name of the tribe is no longer known in the neighbourhood, but it is probable their descendants still linger on the banks of the Lower Tapajos, a traditional hatred towards the Portuguese having been preserved amongst the semi-civilised inhabitants to the present day. The fact of the Urarí poison having been in use amongst the Tapajócos is curious, inasmuch as it shows there was at that time communication between distant tribes along the course of the main Amazons. The Indians now living on the banks of the Tapajos are ignorant of the Urarí, the drug being prepared only by tribes which live on the rivers flowing into the Upper Amazons from the north, 1200 miles distant from the Tapajos.

The city of Santarem suffered greatly during the disorders of 1835–6. According to the accounts I received, it must have been just before that time a much more flourishing place than it is now. There were many more large proprietors, rich in slaves and cattle; the produce of cacao was greater; and a much larger trade was done with the miners of Matto Grosso, who descended the Tapajos with their gold and diamonds, to exchange for salt, hardware, and other heavy European goods. An old Scotch gentleman, Captain Hislop, who had lived here for about thirty-five years, told me that Santarem was then a most delightful place to live in. Provisions were abundant and cheap; labour was easily obtained; and the greatest order, friendliness, and contentment prevailed. The political squabble amongst the whites, which began the troubles, ended, in this part of the country, in a revolt of the Indians. At the beginning of the disorders two parties were formed, one tolerant of the "Bicudos" (long-snouts), as the Portuguese were nicknamed, and supporters of the legal Brazilian Government; the other in favour of revolution, expulsion of the Portuguese, and native rule. The latter co-operated with a large body of rebels who had collected at a place on the banks of the river, not far distant; and on a certain day, according to agreement, the town was invaded by the horde of scoundrels and mistaken patriots. All the Portuguese and those who befriended them, that these infuriated people could lay their hands on, were brutally massacred. A space filled with mounds, amongst the myrtle bushes in the woods behind Santarem, now marks the spot where these poor fellows were confusedly buried. I could give a long account of the horrors of this time as they were related to me; but I think the details would not serve any useful purpose. It must not be thought, however, that the Amazonian people are habitually a blood-thirsty race; on the contrary, the peaceableness and gentleness of character of the inhabitants of this province, in quiet times, are proverbial throughout Brazil. The rarity or absence of deeds of violence from year to year is always commented upon by the President in his annual report to the Central Government.

When the Cabanas or rebels entered the town, the friends of lawful government retired to a large block of buildings near the water-side, which they held for many days, to cover the embarcation of their families and moveables. The negro slaves generally remained faithful to their masters. Whilst the embarcation was going on many daring feats were performed, chiefly by coloured people: one brave fellow, a mameluco, named Paca, made a bold dash one day, with a few young men of the same stamp, and secured five or six of the rebel leaders, who were carried, gagged and handcuffed, on board a schooner in the port. But the legal party were greatly outnumbered and deficient in arms and ammunition, and they were obliged, soon after Paca's feat, entirely to evacuate the town; retiring to the village of Prayinha, about 150 miles down the river. Those citizens of Santarem who sympathised with the rebels were obliged to follow soon after, as the revolt took the shape of a war between Indians and whites. The red skins, however, made an exception in favour of the few English and French residents. Captain Hislop remained in the town during its occupation by the Cabanas, and told me that he was treated very well by the Indians and rebel chiefs.

After Santarem was recaptured, about nine months subsequent to these events, by a small sea and land force sent from Rio Janeiro, aided by the townspeople who were picked up at Prayinha, it was again attacked by a large force of Indians. This affair showed the blind fearlessness and obstinacy of the Indian character in a striking manner. An attack was expected, as the rebels were known to be concealed in great numbers in the neighbouring woods; so the Commandante of the garrison (Captain Leaō) had the whites' quarter strongly stockaded, and every man slept under arms. The Indians acted as though inspired by a diabolical fanaticism; they had no arms, except wooden spears, clubs, and bows and arrows; for their powder and lead had been exhausted long before. With these rude weapons they came through forest and campo to the storming of the now fortified town. The attack was made at sunrise; the sentinels were killed or driven in, and the swarms of red skins climbed the stockade and thronged down the principal street. They were soon met by a strong and well-armed force, well posted in houses or behind walls, and the reckless savages were shot down by hundreds. It was not until the street was encumbered by the heaps of slain that the rest turned their backs and fled. Their numbers were estimated at 2000 men; the remnant of the force escaped across the campos to the village of Altar do Chao, twenty miles distant, whence they scattered themselves along the shores of the Tapajos, and gave great trouble to the Brazilians for many years afterwards. Several expeditions were sent from Santarem to reduce them, a task in which the Government was aided by the friendly Mundurucús of the Upper Tapajos, a large body of whom, under the leadership of their Tushaúa Joaquim, made war on the hostile Indians on the lower parts both of the Madeira and the Tapajos, until they were nearly exterminated.

The country around Santarem is not clothed with dense and lofty forest, like the rest of the great humid river plain of the Amazons. It is a campo region; a slightly elevated and undulating tract of land, wooded only in patches, or with single scattered trees. A good deal of the country on the borders of the Tapajos, which flows from the great campo area of Interior Brazil, is of this description. On this account I consider the eastern side of the river, towards its mouth, to be a northern prolongation of the continental land, and not a portion of the alluvial flats of the Amazons. The soil is a coarse gritty sand; the substratum, which is visible in some places, consisting of sandstone conglomerate probably of the same formation as that which underlies the Tabatinga clay in other parts of the river valley. The surface is carpeted with slender hairy grasses, unfit for pasture, growing to a uniform height of about a foot. The patches of wood look like copses in the middle of green meadows; they are called by the natives "ilhas de mato," or islands of jungle; the name being, no doubt, suggested by their compactness of outline, neatly demarcated in insular form from the smooth carpet of grass around them. They are composed of a great variety of trees, loaded with succulent parasites, and lashed together by woody climbers, like the forest in other parts. A narrow belt of dense wood, similar in character to these ilhas, and like them sharply limited along its borders, runs everywhere parallel and close to the river. In crossing the campo, the path from the town ascends a little for a mile or two, passing through this marginal strip of wood; the grassy land then slopes gradually to a broad valley, watered by rivulets, whose banks are clothed with lofty and luxuriant forest. Beyond this, a range of hills extends as far as the eye can reach towards the yet untrodden interior. Some of these hills are long ridges, wooded or bare; others are isolated conical peaks, rising abruptly from the valley. The highest are probably not more than a thousand feet above the level of the river. One remarkable hill, the Serra de Muruarú, about fifteen miles from Santarem, which terminates the prospect to the south, is of the same truncated pyramidal form as the range of hills near Almeyrim. Complete solitude reigns over the whole of this stretch of beautiful country. The inhabitants of Santarem know nothing of the interior, and seem to feel little curiosity concerning it. A few tracks from the town across the campo lead to some small clearings four or five miles off, belonging to the poorer inhabitants of the place; but, excepting these, there are no roads, or signs of the proximity of a civilised settlement.

The sandy soil and scanty clothing of trees are probably the causes of the great dryness of the climate. In some years no rain falls from August to February; whilst in other parts of the Amazons plains, both above and below this middle part of the river, heavy showers are frequent throughout the dry season. I have often watched the rain-clouds in November and December, when the shrubby vegetation is parched up by the glowing sun of the preceding three months, rise as they approached the hot air over the campos, or diverge from it to discharge their contents on the low forest-clad islands of the opposite shore. The trade-wind, however, blows with great force during the dry months; the hotter the weather the stronger is the breeze, until towards the end of the season it amounts to a gale, stopping the progress of downward-bound vessels.

Some of the trees which grow singly on the campos are very curious. The caju is very abundant; indeed, some parts of the district might be called orchards of this tree, which seems to prefer sandy or gravelly soils. There appear to be several distinct species of it growing in company, to judge by the differences in the colour, flavour, and size of the fruit. This, when ripe, has the colour and figure of a codlin apple, but it has a singular appearance owing to the large kidney-shaped kernel growing outside the pulpy portion of the fruit. It ripens in January, and the poorer classes of Santarem then resort to the campos and gather immense quantities, to make a drink or "wine" as it is called, which is considered a remedy in certain cutaneous disorders. The kernels are roasted and eaten. Another wild fruit-tree is the Murishí (Byrsomina), which yields an abundance of small yellow acid berries. A decoction of its bark dyes cloth a maroon colour. It is employed for this purpose chiefly by the Indians, and coarse cotton shirts tinted with it were the distinctive badges of the native party during the revolution. A very common tree in the Ilhas do Mato is the Breio branco, which secretes from the inner bark a white resin, resembling camphor in smell and appearance. The fruit is a small black berry, and the whole tree, fruit, leaf, and stem, has the same aromatic fragrance. By loosening the bark and allowing the resin to flow freely, I collected a large quantity, and found it of great service in preserving my insect collections from the attacks of ants and mites. Another tree, much rarer than the Breio branco, namely the Umirí (Humirium floribundum), growing in the same localities, distils in a similar way an oil of the most recherché fragrance. The yield, however, is very small. The native women esteem it highly as a scent. To obtain a supply of the precious liquid, large strips of bark are loosened and pieces of cotton left in soak underneath. By visiting the tree daily, and pressing the oil from the cotton, a small phial containing about an ounce may be filled in the course of a month. One of the most singular of the vegetable productions of the campos is the Súcu-úba tree (Plumieria phagedænica). It grows in the greatest luxuriance in the driest parts, and with its long, glossy, dark-green leaves, fresh and succulent even in the most arid seasons, and white jasmine-like flowers, forms the greatest decoration of these solitary places. The bark, leaves, and leaf-stalks, yield a copious supply of milky sap, which the natives use very generally as plaister in local inflammations, laying the liquid on the skin with a brush, and covering the place with cotton. I have known it to work a cure in many cases; but, perhaps, the good effect is attributable to the animal heat drawn to the place by the pad of cotton. The milk flows most freely after the occasional heavy rains in the intervals between the dry and wet seasons; it then spurts out with great force from any part of the tree if hacked with a knife in passing.

The appearance of the campos changes very much according to the season. There is not that grand uniformity of aspect throughout the year which is observed in the virgin forest, and which makes a deeper impression on the naturalist the longer he remains in this country. The seasons in this part of the Amazons region are sharply contrasted, but the difference is not so great as in some tropical countries, where, during the dry monsoon, insects and reptiles æstivate, and the trees simultaneously shed their leaves. As the dry season advances (August, September), the grass on the campos withers, and the shrubby vegetation near the town becomes a mass of parched yellow stubble. The period, however, is not one of general torpidity or repose for animal or vegetable life. Birds certainly are not so numerous as in the wet season, but some kinds remain and lay their eggs at this time—for instance, the ground doves (Chamæpelia). The trees retain their verdure throughout, and many of them flower in the dry months. Lizards do not become torpid, and insects are seen both in the larva and the perfect states, showing that the aridity of the climate has not a general influence on the development of the species. Some kinds of butterflies, especially the little hair-streaks (Theclæ), whose larvæ feed on the trees, make their appearance only when the dry season is at its height. The land molluscs of the district, are the only animals which æstivate; they are found in clusters, Bulimi and Helices, concealed in hollow trees, the mouths of their shells closed by a film of mucus. The fine weather breaks up often with great suddenness about the beginning of February. Violent squalls from the west or the opposite direction to the trade-wind then occur. They give very little warning, and the first generally catches the people unprepared. They fall in the night, and blowing directly into the harbour, with the first gust sweep all vessels from their anchorage; in a few minutes, a mass of canoes, large and small, including schooners of fifty tons burthen, are clashing together, pell mell, on the beach. I have reason to remember these storms, for I was once caught in one myself, whilst crossing the river in an undecked boat, about a day's journey from Santarem. They are accompanied with terrific electric explosions, the sharp claps of thunder falling almost simultaneously with the blinding flashes of lightning. Torrents of rain follow the first outbreak; the wind then gradually abates, and the rain subsides into a steady drizzle, which continues often for the greater part of the succeeding day. After a week or two of showery weather the aspect of the country is completely changed. The parched ground in the neighbourhood of Santarem breaks out, so to speak, in a rash of greenery; the dusty, languishing trees gain, without having shed their old leaves, a new clothing of tender green foliage; a wonderful variety of quick-growing leguminous plants springs up, and leafy creepers overrun the ground, the bushes, and the trunks of trees. One is reminded of the sudden advent of spring after a few warm showers in northern climates; I was the more struck by it as nothing similar is witnessed in the virgin forests amongst which I had passed the four years previous to my stay in this part. The grass on the campos is renewed, and many of the campo trees, especially the myrtles, which grow abundantly in one portion of the district, begin to flower, attracting by the fragrance of their blossoms a great number and variety of insects, more particularly Coleoptera. Many kinds of birds; parrots, toucans, and barbets, which live habitually in the forest, then visit the open places. A few weeks of comparatively dry weather generally intervene in March, after a month or two of rain. The heaviest rains fall in April, May, and June; they come in a succession of showers, with sunny gleamy weather in the intervals. June and July are the months when the leafy luxuriance of the campos, and the activity of life, are at their highest. Most birds have then completed their moulting, which extends over the period from February to May. The flowering shrubs are then mostly in bloom, and numberless kinds of Dipterous and Hymenopterous insects appear simultaneously with the flowers. This season might be considered the equivalent of summer in temperate climates, as the bursting forth of the foliage in February represents the spring; but under the equator there is not that simultaneous march in the annual life of animals and plants, which we see in high latitudes; some species, it is true, are dependent upon others in their periodical acts of life, and go hand-in-hand with them, but they are not all simultaneously and similarly affected by the physical changes of the seasons.

I will now give an account of some of my favourite collecting places in the neighbourhood of Santarem, incorporating with the description a few of the more interesting observations made on the Natural History of the localities. To the west of the town there was a pleasant path along the beach to a little bay, called Mapirí, about five miles within the mouth of the Tapajos. The road was practicable only in the dry season. The river at Santarem rises on the average about thirty feet, varying in different years about ten feet; so that in the four months, from April to July, the water comes up to the edge of the marginal belt of wood already spoken of. This Mapirí excursion was most pleasant and profitable in the months from January to March, before the rains become too continuous. The sandy beach beyond the town is very irregular; in some places forming long spits on which, when the east wind is blowing, the waves break in a line of foam; at others receding to shape out quiet little bays and pools. On the outskirts of the town a few scattered huts of Indians and coloured people are passed, prettily situated on the margin of the white beach, with a background of glorious foliage; the cabin of the pure-blood Indian being distinguished from the mud hovels of the free negroes and mulattoes by its light construction, half of it being an open shed where the dusky tenants are seen at all hours of the day lounging in their open-meshed grass hammocks. About two miles on the road we come to a series of shallow pools, called the Laguinhos, which are connected with the river in the wet season, but separated from it by a high bank of sand topped with bushes at other times. There is a break here in the fringe of wood, and a glimpse is obtained of the grassy campo. When the waters have risen to the level of the pools this place is frequented by many kinds of wading birds. Snow-white egrets of two species stand about the margins of the water, and dusky-striped herons may be seen half hidden under the shade of the bushes. The pools are covered with a small kind of water-lily, and surrounded by a dense thicket. Amongst the birds which inhabit this spot is the rosy-breasted Troupial (Trupialis Guianensis), a bird resembling our starling in size and habits, and not unlike it in colour, with the exception of the rich rosy vest. The water at this time of the year overflows a large level tract of campo bordering the pools, and the Troupials come to feed on the larvæ of insects which then abound in the moist soil.

Beyond the Laguinhos there succeeds a tract of level beach covered with trees which form a beautiful grove. About the month of April, when the water rises to this level, the trees are covered with blossom, and a handsome orchid, an Epidendron with large white flowers, which clothes thickly the trunks, is profusely in bloom. Several kinds of kingfisher resort to the place: four species may be seen within a small space: the largest as big as a crow, of a mottled-grey hue, and with an enormous beak; the smallest not larger than a sparrow. The large one makes its nest in clay cliffs, three or four miles distant from this place. None of the kingfishers are so brilliant in colour as our English species. The blossoms on the trees attract two or three species of humming-birds, the most conspicuous of which is a large swallow-tailed kind (Eupetomena macroura), with a brilliant livery of emerald green and steel blue. I noticed that it did not remain so long poised in the air before the flowers as the other smaller species; it perched more frequently, and sometimes darted after small insects on the wing. Emerging from the grove there is a long stretch of sandy beach; the land is high and rocky, and the belt of wood which skirts the river banks is much broader than it is elsewhere. At length, after rounding a projecting bluff, the bay of Mapirí is reached. The river view is characteristic of the Tapajos: the shores are wooded, and on the opposite side is a line of clay cliffs, with hills in the background clothed with rolling forest. A long spit of sand extends into mid-river, beyond which is an immense expanse of dark water, the further shore of the Tapajos being barely visible as a thin grey line of trees on the horizon. The transparency of air and water in the dry season when the brisk east wind is blowing, and the sharpness of outline of hills, woods, and sandy beaches, give a great charm to this spot.

The little pools along the beach were tenanted by several species of fresh-water mollusks. The most abundant was a long turret-shaped Melania, which swarmed in them in the same way as Limnææ do in ponds at home. I found no Limnæa, nor indeed any European genus of fresh-water mollusk, in the Amazons region. After the first storms of February the coast is strewn with large apple-shells (Ampullaria). They are not inhabitants of the pools on this side of the river, but are involuntary visitors, being driven across by the wind and waves with masses of marsh plants from the low land of the opposite shore. A great many are dead shells, and more or less worn. In showery weather I seldom came this way without seeing one or more water snakes of the genus Helicops. They were generally concealed under the heaps of thick aquatic grasses cast ashore by storms; and when exposed, always made off straight for the water. They glided along with such agility that I rarely succeeded in capturing one, and on reaching the river they sought at once the bottom in the deepest parts. I believe these snakes are swept from the marshy land of the western shore with the patches of grass and the Ampullariæ just mentioned. Other reptiles and a great number of insects are blown or floated over in the same way by the violent squalls which occur in January or February. None of the species take root on the Santarem side of the river. Sometimes myriads of Coleopterous insects, belonging to about half a dozen kinds, are blown across, and become perfect pests to the town's people for two or three nights, swarming about the lights in every chamber. They get under one's clothing, or down one's back, and pass from the oil-lamp on to the furniture, books, and papers, smearing everything they touch. The open shops facing the beach become filled with them, and customers have to make a dash in and out through the showers that fall about the large brass lamps over the counter, when they want to make a purchase. The species are certainly not indigenous to the eastern side of the river; the hosts soon disappear; those which cannot get back must perish helplessly, for the soil, vegetation, and climate of the Santarem side are ill suited to the inhabitants of the opposite shore.

The pools I have mentioned were tenanted by a considerable variety of insects.^[1] I found also a very large number, chiefly of carnivorous land-beetles under the pebbles and rejectamenta along the edge of the water during my many rambles. I was much struck with the similarity of the Dragon-flies (whose early states are passed in the water) to those of Britain. A species of Libellula with pointed tail, which darted about over the bushes near the ponds, is very closely allied to our English L. quadrimaculata. But the resemblance was greater in the small, slender-bodied and slow-flying species, the Agrions, which every lover of rural walks must have noticed in England by river sides. There was one pretty kind with a pale blue ring at the tip of the body which resembled to a remarkable degree a common British species. Although very near akin, neither this nor any of the other kinds, were perfectly identical with European ones. The strikingly peculiar dragon-flies from Tropical America which are seen in our collections are denizens of the forest, being bred in the shady brooks and creeks in their recesses, and not in the weedy ponds of open places. Some of these forest species are strange creatures with slender bodies measuring seven inches in length; their elegant lace-work wings tipped with white or yellow. They fly slowly amongst the trees, preying on small Diptera, and in their flight look like animated spindles; the wings, placed at the fore extremity of the long, horizontally-extended body, moving rapidly and creating the impression of rotary motion.

Whilst resting in the shade during the great heat of the early hours of afternoon, I used to find amusement in watching the proceedings of the sand-wasps. A small pale green kind of Bembex (Bembex ciliata), was plentiful near the bay of Mapirí. When they are at work, a number of little jets of sand are seen shooting over the surface of the sloping bank. The little miners excavate with their fore feet, which are strongly built and furnished with a fringe of stiff bristles; they work with wonderful rapidity, and the sand thrown out beneath their bodies issues in continuous streams. They are solitary wasps, each female working on her own account. After making a gallery two or three inches in length in a slanting direction from the surface, the owner backs out and takes a few turns round the orifice apparently to see whether it is well made, but in reality, I believe, to take note of the locality, that she may find it again. This done, the busy workwoman flies away; but returns, after an absence varying in different cases from a few minutes to an hour or more, with a fly in her grasp, with which she re-enters her mine. On again emerging, the entrance is carefully closed with sand. During this interval she has laid an egg on the body of the fly which she had previously benumbed with her sting, and which is to serve as food for the soft, footless grub soon to be hatched from the egg. From what I could make out, the Bembex makes a fresh excavation for every egg to be deposited; at least in two or three of the galleries which I opened there was only one fly enclosed.

I have said that the Bembex on leaving her mine took note of the locality: this seemed to be the explanation of the short delay previous to her taking flight; on rising in the air also the insects generally flew round over the place before making straight off. Another nearly allied but much larger species, the Monedula signata, whose habits I observed on the banks of the Upper Amazons, sometimes excavates its mine solitarily on sand-banks recently laid bare in the middle of the river, and closes the orifice before going in search of prey. In these cases the insect has to make a journey of at least half a mile to procure the kind of fly, the Motúca (Hadaüs lepidotus), with which it provisions its cell. I often noticed it to take a few turns in the air round the place before starting; on its return it made without hesitation straight for the closed mouth of the mine. I was convinced that the insects noted the bearings of their nests and the direction they took in flying from them. The proceeding in this and similar cases (I have read of something analogous having been noticed in hive bees) seems to be a mental act of the same nature as that which takes place in ourselves when recognising a locality. The senses, however, must be immeasurably more keen and the mental operation much more certain in them than it is in man; for to my eye there was absolutely no land-mark on the even surface of sand which could serve as guide, and the borders of the forest were not nearer than half a mile. The action of the wasp would be said to be instinctive; but it seems plain that the instinct is no mysterious and unintelligible agent, but a mental process in each individual, differing from the same in man only by its unerring certainty. The mind of the insect appears to be so constituted that the impression of external objects or the want felt, causes it to act with a precision which seems to us like that of a machine constructed to move in a certain given way. I have noticed in Indian boys a sense of locality almost as keen as that possessed by the sand-wasp. An old Portuguese and myself, accompanied by a young lad about ten years of age, were once lost in the forest in a most solitary place on the banks of the main river. Our case seemed hopeless, and it did not, for some time occur to us to consult our little companion, who had been playing with his bow and arrow all the way whilst we were hunting, apparently taking no note of the route. When asked, however, he pointed out, in a moment, the right direction of our canoe. He could not explain how he knew; I believe he had noted the course we had taken almost unconsciously: the sense of locality in his case seemed instinctive.

The Monedula signata is a good friend to travellers in those parts of the Amazons which are infested with the blood-thirsty Motúca. I first noticed its habit of preying on this fly one day when we landed to make our fire and dine on the borders of the forest adjoining a sand-bank. The insect is as large as a hornet, and has a most waspish appearance. I was rather startled when one out of the flock which was hovering about us flew straight at my face: it had espied a Motúca on my neck and was thus pouncing upon it. It seizes the fly not with its mandibles but with its fore and middle feet, and carries it off tightly held to its breast. Wherever the traveller lands on the Upper Amazons in the neighbourhood of a sand-bank he is sure to be attended by one or more of these useful vermin-killers.

The bay of Mapirí was the limit of my day excursions by the river-side to the west of Santarem. A person may travel, however, on foot, as Indians frequently do, in the dry season for fifty or sixty miles along the broad clean sandy beaches of the Tapajos. The only obstacles are the rivulets, most of which are fordable when the waters are low. To the east my rambles extended to the banks of the Mahicá inlet. This enters the Amazons about three miles below Santarem, where the clear stream of the Tapajos begins to be discoloured by the turbid waters of the main river. The broad, placid channel of the Mahicá separates the Tapajos mainland from the alluvial low lands of the great river plain. It communicates in the interior with other inlets, and the whole forms a system of inland water-paths navigable by small vessels from Santarem to the river Curuá, forty miles distant. The Mahicá has a broad margin of rich, level pasture, limited on each side by the straight, tall hedge of forest. On the Santarem side it is skirted by high wooded ridges. A landscape of this description always produced in me an impression of sadness and loneliness which the riant virgin forests that closely hedge in most of the by-waters of the Amazons never created. The pastures are destitute of flowers, and also of animal life, with the exception of a few small plain-coloured birds and solitary Caracára eagles whining from the topmost branches of dead trees on the forest borders. A few settlers have built their palm-thatched and mud-walled huts on the banks of the Mahicá, and occupy themselves chiefly in tending small herds of cattle. They seemed to be all wretchedly poor. The oxen however, though small, were sleek and fat, and the district most promising for agricultural and pastoral employments. In the wet season the waters gradually rise and cover the meadows, but there is plenty of room for the removal of the cattle to higher ground. The lazy and ignorant people seem totally unable to profit by these advantages. The houses have no gardens or plantations near them. I was told it was useless to plant anything, because the cattle devoured the young shoots. In this country, grazing and planting are very rarely carried on together; for the people seem to have no notion of enclosing patches of ground for cultivation. They say it is too much trouble to make enclosures. The construction of a durable fence is certainly a difficult matter, for it is only two or three kinds of tree which will serve the purpose in being free from the attacks of insects, and these are scattered far and wide through the woods.

In one place, where there was a pretty bit of pasture surrounded by woods, I found a grazier established, who supplied Santarem daily with milk. He was a strong, wiry half-breed, a man endowed with a little more energy than his neighbours, and really a hard-working fellow. The land was his own, and the dozen or so well-conditioned cows which grazed upon it. It was melancholy, however, to see the miserable way in which the man lived. His house, a mere barn, scarcely protecting its owner from the sun and rain, was not much better built or furnished than an Indian's hut. He complained that it was impossible to induce any of the needy free people to work for wages. The poor fellow led a dull, solitary life; he had no family, and his wife had left him for some cause or other. He was up every morning by four o'clock, milked his cows with the help of a neighbour, and carried the day's yield to the town in stone bottles packed in leather bags on horseback by sunrise. His wretched little farm produced nothing else. The house stood in the middle of the bare pasture, without garden or any sort of plantation; a group of stately palms stood close by, to the trunks of which he secured the cows whilst milking. Butter-making is unknown in this country; the milk, I was told, is too poor; it is very rare indeed to see even the thinnest coating of cream on it, and the yield for each cow is very small. Our dairyman had to bring from Santarem every morning the meat, bread, and vegetables for the day's consumption. The other residents of Mahicá were not even so well off as this man. I always had to bring my own provisions when I came this way, for a perennial famine seemed to reign in the place. I could not help picturing to myself the very different aspect this fertile tract of country would wear if it were peopled by a few families of agricultural settlers from Northern Europe.

Although the meadows were unproductive ground to a Naturalist, the woods on their borders teemed with life: the number and variety of curious insects of all orders which occurred here was quite wonderful. The belt of forest was intersected by numerous pathways leading from one settler's house to another. The ground was moist, but the trees were not so lofty or their crowns so densely packed together as in other parts; the sun's light and heat therefore had freer access to the soil, and the underwood was much more diversified than in the virgin forest. I never saw so many kinds of dwarf palms together as here; pretty miniature species; some not more than five feet high, and bearing little clusters of round fruit not larger than a good bunch of currants. A few of the forest trees had the size and strongly-branched figures of our oaks, and a similar bark. One noble palm grew here in great abundance, and gave a distinctive character to the district. This was the Œnocarpus distichus, one of the kinds called Bacába by the natives. It grows to a height of forty to fifty feet. The crown is of a lustrous dark-green colour, and of a singularly flattened or compressed shape; the leaves being arranged on each side in nearly the same plane. When I first saw this tree on the campos, where the east wind blows with great force night and day for several months, I thought the shape of the crown was due to the leaves being prevented from radiating equally by the constant action of the breezes. But the plane of growth is not always in the direction of the wind, and the crown has the same shape when the tree grows in the sheltered woods. The fruit of this fine palm ripens towards the end of the year, and is much esteemed by the natives, who manufacture a pleasant drink from it similar to the assai described in a former chapter, by rubbing off the coat of pulp from the nuts, and mixing it with water. A bunch of fruit weighs thirty or forty pounds. The beverage has a milky appearance, and an agreeable nutty flavour. The tree is very difficult to climb, on account of the smoothness of its stem; consequently the natives, whenever they want a bunch of fruit for a bowl of Bacába, cut down and thus destroy a tree which has taken a score or two of years to grow, in order to get at it.

In the lower part of the Mahicá woods, towards the river, there is a bed of stiff white clay, which supplies the people of Santarem with material for the manufacture of coarse pottery and cooking utensils: all the kettles, saucepans, mandioca ovens, coffee-pots, washing-vessels, and so forth, of the poorer classes throughout the country, are made of this same plastic clay, which occurs at short intervals over the whole surface of the Amazons valley, from the neighbourhood of Pará to within the Peruvian borders, and forms part of the great Tabatinga marl deposit. To enable the vessels to stand the fire, the bark of a certain tree, called Caraipé, is burnt and mixed with the clay, which gives tenacity to the ware. Caraipé is an article of commerce, being sold, packed in baskets, at the shops in most of the towns. The shallow pits, excavated in the marly soil at Mahicá, were very attractive to many kinds of mason bees and wasps, who make use of the clay to build their nests with. I spent many an hour, watching their proceedings: a short account of the habits of some of these busy creatures may be interesting.

The most conspicuous was a large yellow and black wasp, with a remarkably long and narrow waist, the Pelopæus fistularis. It collected the clay in little round pellets, which it carried off, after rolling them into a convenient shape in its mandibles. It came straight to the pit with a loud hum, and, on alighting, lost not a moment in beginning to work; finishing the kneading of its little load in two or three minutes. The nest of this species is shaped like a pouch, two inches in length, and is attached to a branch or other projecting object. One of these restless artificers once began to build on the handle of a chest in the cabin of my canoe, when we were stationary at a place for several days. It was so intent on its work that it allowed me to inspect the movements of its mouth with a lens whilst it was laying on the mortar. Every fresh pellet was brought in with a triumphant song, which changed to a cheerful busy hum when it alighted and began to work. Pelopæus Wasp building nest.The little ball of moist clay was laid on the edge of the cell, and then spread out around the circular rim by means of the lower lip guided by the mandibles. The insect placed itself astride over the rim to work, and, on finishing each addition to the structure, took a turn round, patting the sides with its feet inside and out before flying off to gather a fresh pellet. It worked only in sunny weather, and the previous layer was sometimes not quite dry when the new coating was added. The whole structure takes about a week to complete. I left the place before the gay little builder had quite finished her task: she did not accompany the canoe, although we moved along the bank of the river very slowly. On opening closed nests of this species, which are common in the neighbourhood of Mahicá, I always found them to be stocked with small spiders of the genus Gastracantha, in the usual half-dead state to which the mother wasps reduce the insects which are to serve as food for their progeny.

Besides the Pelopæus there were three or four kinds of Trypoxylon, a genus also found in Europe, and which some Naturalists have supposed to be parasitic, because the legs are not furnished with the usual row of strong bristles for digging, characteristic of the family to which it belongs. The species of Trypoxylon, however, are all building wasps; two of them which I observed (T. albitarse and an undescribed species) provision their nests with spiders, a third (T. aurifrons) with small caterpillars. Their habits are similar to those of the Pelopæus; namely, they carry off the clay in their mandibles, and have a different song when they hasten away with the burthen, to that which they sing whilst at work. Trypoxylon albitarse, which is a large black kind, three-quarters of an inch in length, makes a tremendous fuss whilst building its cell. It often chooses the walls or doors of chambers for this purpose, and when two or three are at work in the same place their loud humming keeps the house Cells of Trypoxylon aurifrons.in an uproar. The cell is a tubular structure about three inches in length. T. aurifrons, a much smaller species, makes a neat little nest shaped like a carafe; building rows of them together in the corners of verandahs.

But the most numerous and interesting of the clay artificers are the workers of a species of social bee, the Melipona fasciculata. The Meliponæ in tropical America take the place of the true Apides, to which the European hive-bee belongs, and which are here unknown; they are generally much smaller insects than the hive-bees and have no sting. The M. fasciculata is about a third shorter than the Apis mellifica: its colonies are composed of an immense number of individuals; the workers are generally seen collecting pollen in the same way as other bees, but great numbers are employed gathering clay. The rapidity and precision of their movements whilst thus engaged are wonderful. They first scrape the clay with their mandibles;

Melipona Bees gathering clay.

the small portions gathered are then cleared by the anterior paws and passed to the second pair of feet, which, in their turn, convey them to the large foliated expansions of the hind shanks which are adapted normally in bees, as every one knows, for the collection of pollen. The middle feet pat the growing pellets of mortar on the hind legs to keep them in a compact shape as the particles are successively added. The little hods-men soon have as much as they can carry, and they then fly off. I was for some time puzzled to know what the bees did with the clay; but I had afterwards plenty of opportunity for ascertaining. They construct their combs in any suitable crevice in trunks of trees or perpendicular banks, and the clay is required to build up a wall so as to close the gap, with the exception of a small orifice for their own entrance and exit. Most kinds of Meliponæ are in this way masons as well as workers in wax and pollen-gatherers. One little species (undescribed) not more than two lines long, builds a neat tubular gallery of clay, kneaded with some viscid substance outside the entrance to its hive, besides blocking up the crevice in the tree within which it is situated. The mouth of the tube is trumpet-shaped, and at the entrance a number of the pigmy bees are always stationed apparently acting as sentinels.

It is remarkable that none of the American bees have attained that high degree of architectural skill in the construction of their comb which is shown by the European hive bee. The wax cells of the Meliponæ are generally oblong, showing only an approximation to the hexagonal shape in places where several of them are built in contact. It would appear that the Old World has produced in bees, as well as in other families of animals, far more advanced forms than the tropics of the New World.

A hive of the Melipona fasciculata, which I saw opened, contained about two quarts of pleasantly-tasted liquid honey. The bees, as already remarked, have no sting, but they bite furiously when their colonies are disturbed. The Indian who plundered the hive was completely covered by them; they took a particular fancy to the hair of his head, and fastened on it by hundreds. I found forty-five species of these bees in different parts of the country; the largest was half an inch in length; the smallest were extremely minute, some kinds being not more than one-twelfth of an inch in size. These tiny fellows are often very troublesome in the woods, on account of their familiarity; they settle on one's face and hands; and, in crawling about, get into the eyes and mouth, or up the nostrils.

The broad expansion of the hind shanks of bees is applied in some species to other uses besides the conveyance of clay and pollen. The female of the handsome golden and black Euglossa Surinamensis has this palette of very large size. This species builds its solitary nest also in crevices of walls or trees; but it closes up the chink with fragments of dried leaves and sticks cemented together, instead of clay. It visits the cajú trees, and gathers with its hind legs a small quantity of the gum which exudes from their trunks. To this it adds the other materials required from the neighbouring bushes, and when laden flies off to its nest.

Whilst on the subject of bees, I may mention that the neighbourhoods of Santarem and Villa Nova yielded me about 140 species. The genera are for the most part different from those inhabiting Europe. A very large number make their cells in hollow twigs and branches. As in our own country, the industrious nest-building kinds are attended by other species which do not work or store up food for their progeny, but deposit their ova in the cells of their comrades. Some of these, it is well known, counterfeit the dress and general figure of their victims. To all appearance this similarity of shape and colours between the parasite and its victim is given for the purpose of deceiving the poor hard-working bee, which would otherwise revenge itself by slaying its plunderers. Some parasitic bees, however, have no resemblance to the species they impose upon; probably they live together on more friendly terms, or have some other means of disarming suspicion. Many Dipterous insects are also parasitic on bees, and wear the same dress as the species they live upon. That the dress of the victimisers is arranged with especial reference to their prey, I think is proved by what I observed at Santarem. The genera of the parasites here are not the same as in Europe; and when they counterfeit working bees, it is the peculiarly-coloured species of their own country that are imitated, and not those of any other region. The European genus Apathus, which mimics European Humble-bees, is not found in South America; but the common Bombus of Santarem, which is remarkable in being wholly of a sooty-black colour, is attended by a sooty black parasite of a widely-different genus, the Eurytis funereus. Many of the little Meliponæ have their counterfeits in small Diptera of the family Syrphidæ; and the brilliant green or blue bees of the country (Euglossa) have their imitators in parasitic bees of equally bright colours, belonging to genera unknown out of the countries where the Euglossæ are found.^[2]

To the south my rambles never extended further than the banks of the Irurá, a stream which rises amongst the hills already spoken of, and running through a broad valley, wooded along the margins of the water-courses, falls into the Tapajos, at the head of the bay of Mapirí. All beyond, as before remarked, is terra incognita to the inhabitants of Santarem. The Brazilian settlers on the banks of the Amazons seem to have no taste for explorations by land, and I could find no person willing to accompany me on an excursion further towards the interior. Such a journey would be exceedingly difficult in this country, even if men could be obtained willing to undertake it. Besides, there were reports of a settlement of fierce runaway negroes on the Serra de Mururarú, and it was considered unsafe to go far in that direction, except with a large armed party. I visited the banks of the Irurá and the rich woods accompanying it, and two other streams in the same neighbourhood, one called the Panéma, and the other the Urumarí, once or twice a week during the whole time of my residence in Santarem, and made large collections of their natural productions. These forest brooks, with their clear cold waters brawling over their sandy or pebbly beds through wild tropical glens, always had a great charm for me. The beauty of the moist, cool, and luxuriant glades was heightened by the contrast they afforded to the sterile country around them. The bare or scantily wooded hills which surround the valley are parched by the rays of the vertical sun. One of them, the Pico do Irurá, forms a nearly perfect cone, rising from a small grassy plain to a height of 500 or 600 feet, and its ascent is excessively fatiguing after the long walk from Santarem over the campos. I tried it one day, but did not reach the summit. A dense growth of coarse grasses clothed the steep sides of the hill, with here and there a stunted tree of kinds found in the plain beneath. In bared places, a red crumbly soil is exposed; and in one part a mass of rock, which appeared to me, from its compact texture and the absence of stratification, to be porphyritic; but I am not Geologist sufficient to pronounce on such questions. Mr. Wallace states that he found fragments of scoriæ, and believes the hill to be a volcanic cone. To the south and east of this isolated peak, the elongated ridges or table-topped hills attain a somewhat greater elevation.

The forest in the valley is limited to a tract a few hundred yards in width on each side the different streams: in places where these run along the bases of the hills the hill-sides facing the water are also richly wooded, although their opposite declivities are bare or nearly so. The trees are lofty and of great variety; amongst them are colossal examples of the Brazil nut tree (Bertholletia excelsa), and the Pikiá. This latter bears a large eatable fruit, curious in having a hollow chamber between the pulp and the kernel, beset with hard spines which produce serious wounds if they enter the skin. The eatable part appeared to me not much more palatable than a raw potato; but the inhabitants of Santarem are very fond of it, and undertake the most toilsome journeys on foot to gather a basketful. The tree which yields the tonka bean (Dipteryx odorata), used in Europe for scenting snuff, is also of frequent occurrence here. It grows to an immense height, and the fruit, which, although a legume, is of a rounded shape, and has but one seed, can be gathered only when it falls to the ground. A considerable quantity (from 1000 to 3000 pounds) is exported annually from Santarem, the produce of the whole region of the Tapajos. An endless diversity of trees and shrubs, some beautiful in flower and foliage, others bearing curious fruits, grow in this matted wilderness. It would be tedious to enumerate many of them. I was much struck with the variety of trees, with large and diversely-shaped fruits growing out of the trunk and branches, some within a few inches of the ground, like the cacao. Most of them are called by the natives Cupú, and the trees are of inconsiderable height. One of them called Cupú-aï bears a fruit of elliptical shape and of a dingy earthen colour six or seven inches long, the shell of which is woody and thin, and contains a small number of seeds loosely enveloped in a juicy pulp of very pleasant flavour. The fruits hang like clayey ants'-nests from the branches. Another kind more nearly resembles the cacao; this is shaped something like the cucumber, and has a green ribbed husk. It bears the name of Cacao de macaco, or monkey's chocolate, but the seeds are smaller than those of the common cacao. I tried once or twice to make chocolate from them. They contain plenty of oil of similar fragrance to that of the ordinary cacao-nut, and make up very well into paste; but the beverage has a repulsive clayey colour and an inferior flavour.

My excursions to the Irurá had always a picnic character. A few rude huts are scattered through the valley, but they are tenanted only for a few days in the year, when their owners come to gather and roast the mandioca of their small clearings. We used generally to take with us two boys—one negro, the other Indian—to carry our provisions for the day; a few pounds of beef or fried fish, farinha and bananas, with plates, and a kettle for cooking. José carried the guns, ammunition and game-bags, and I the apparatus for entomologizing—the insect net, a large leathern bag with compartments for corked boxes, phials, glass tubes, and so forth. It was our custom to start soon after sunrise, when the walk over the campos was cool and pleasant, the sky without a cloud, and the grass wet with dew. The paths are mere faint tracks; in our early excursions it was difficult to avoid missing our way. We were once completely lost, and wandered about for several hours over the scorching soil without recovering the road. A fine view is obtained of the country from the rising ground about half way across the waste. Thence to the bottom of the valley is a long, gentle, grassy slope, bare of trees. The strangely-shaped hills; the forest at their feet, richly varied with palms; the bay of Mapirí on the right, with the dark waters of the Tapajos and its white glistening shores, are all spread out before one as if depicted on canvas. The extreme transparency of the atmosphere gives to all parts of the landscape such clearness of outline that the idea of distance is destroyed, and one fancies the whole to be almost within reach of the hand. Descending into the valley, a small brook has to be crossed, and then half a mile of sandy plain, whose vegetation wears a peculiar aspect, owing to the predominance of a stemless palm, the Curuá (Attalea spectabilis), whose large, beautifully pinnated, rigid leaves rise directly from the soil. The fruit of this species is similar to the coco-nut, containing milk in the interior of the kernel, but it is much inferior to it in size. Here, and indeed all along the road, we saw, on most days in the wet season, tracks of the Jaguar. We never, however, met with the animal, although we sometimes heard his loud "hough" in the night whilst lying in our hammocks at home, in Santarem, and knew he must be lurking somewhere near us.

My best hunting ground was a part of the valley sheltered on one side by a steep hill whose declivity, like the swampy valley beneath, was clothed with magnificent forest. We used to make our halt in a small cleared place, tolerably free from ants and close to the water. Here we assembled after our toilsome morning's hunt in different directions through the woods, took our well-earned meal on the ground—two broad leaves of the wild banana serving us for a tablecloth—and rested for a couple of hours during the great heat of the afternoon. The diversity of animal productions was as wonderful as that of the vegetable forms in this rich locality. I find by my register that it was not unusual to meet with thirty or forty new species of conspicuous insects during a day's search, even after I had made a great number of trips to the same spot. It was pleasant to lie down during the hottest part of the day, when my people lay asleep, and watch the movements of animals. Sometimes a troop of Anús (Crotophaga), a glossy black-plumaged bird, which lives in small societies in grassy places, would come in from the campos, one by one, calling to each other as they moved from tree to tree. Or a Toucan (Rhamphastos ariel) silently hopped or ran along and up the branches, peeping into chinks and crevices. Notes of solitary birds resounded from a

The Jacuarú (Teius teguexim).

distance through the wilderness. Occasionally a sulky Trogon would be seen, with its brilliant green back and rose-coloured breast, perched for an hour without moving on a low branch. A number of large, fat lizards two feet long, of a kind called by the natives Jacuarú (Teius teguexim) were always observed in the still hours of midday scampering with great clatter over the dead leaves, apparently in chase of each other. The fat of this bulky lizard is much prized by the natives, who apply it as a poultice to draw palm spines or even grains of shot from the flesh. Other lizards of repulsive aspect, about three feet in length when full grown, splashed about and swam in the water; sometimes emerging to crawl into hollow trees on the banks of the stream, where I once found a female and a nest of eggs. The lazy flapping flight of large blue and black morpho butterflies high in the air, the hum of insects, and many inanimate sounds, contributed their share to the total impression this strange solitude produced. Heavy fruits from the crowns of trees which were mingled together at a giddy height overhead, fell now and then with a startling "plop" into the water. The breeze, not felt below, stirred in the topmost branches, setting the twisted and looped sipós in motion, which creaked and groaned in a great variety of notes. To these noises were added the monotonous ripple of the brook, which had its little cascade at every score or two yards of its course.

We frequently fell in with an old Indian woman, named Cecilia, who had a small clearing in the woods. She had the reputation of being a witch (feiticeira), and I found, on talking with her, that she prided herself on her knowledge of the black art. Her slightly curled hair showed that she was not a pure-blood Indian: I was told her father was a dark mulatto. She was always very civil to our party; showing us the best paths, explaining the virtues and uses of different plants, and so forth. I was much amused at the accounts she gave of the place. Her solitary life and the gloom of the woods seemed to have filled her with superstitious fancies. She said gold was contained in the bed of the brook, and that the murmur of the water over the little cascades was the voice of the "water-mother" revealing the hidden treasure. A narrow pass between two hill sides was the portaō or gate, and all within, along the wooded banks of the stream, was enchanted ground. The hill underneath which we were encamped was the enchanter's abode, and she gravely told us she often had long conversations with him. These myths were of her own invention, and in the same way an endless number of other similar ones have originated in the childish imaginations of the poor Indian and half-breed inhabitants of different parts of the country. It is to be remarked, however, that the Indian men all become sceptics after a little intercourse with the whites. The witchcraft of poor Cecilia was of a very weak quality. It consisted in throwing pinches of powdered bark of a certain tree and other substances into the fire whilst muttering a spell—a prayer repeated backwards—and adding the name of the person on whom she wished the incantation to operate. Some of the feiticeiras, however, play more dangerous tricks than this harmless mummery. They are acquainted with many poisonous plants, and although they seldom have the courage to administer a fatal dose, sometimes contrive to convey to their victim sufficient to cause serious illness. The motive by which they are actuated is usually jealousy of other women in love matters. Whilst I resided in Santarem a case of what was called witchcraft was tried by the sub-delegado, in which a highly respectable white lady was the complainant. It appeared that some feiticeira had sprinkled a quantity of the acrid juice of a large arum on her linen as it was hanging out to dry, and it was thought this had caused a serious eruption under which the lady suffered.

I seldom met with any of the larger animals in these excursions. We never saw a mammal of any kind on the campos; but tracks of three species were seen occasionally besides those of the Jaguar: these belonged to a small tiger cat, a deer, and an opossum; all of which animals must have been very rare, and probably nocturnal in their habits, with the exception of the deer. I saw in the woods, on one occasion, a small flock of monkeys, and once had an opportunity of watching the movements of a sloth. The monkeys belonged to a very pretty and rare species, a kind of marmoset, I think the Hapale humeralifer described by Geoffroy St. Hilaire. I did not succeed in obtaining a specimen, but saw a living example afterwards in the possession of a shopkeeper at Santarem. It seems to occur nowhere else except in the dry woods bordering the campos in the interior parts of Brazil. The colours of its fur are beautifully varied; the fore part of the body is white, with the hands gray; the hind part black, with the rump and underside reddish-tawny; the tail is banded with gray and black. Its face is partly naked and flesh-coloured, and the ears are fringed with long white hairs. The specimen was not more than eight inches in length, exclusive of the tail. Altogether I thought it the prettiest species of its family I had yet seen. One would mistake it, at first sight, for a kitten, from its small size, varied colours, and the softness of its fur. It was a most timid creature, screaming and biting when any one attempted to handle it; it became familiar, however, with the people of the house a few days after it came into their possession. When hungry or uneasy it uttered a weak querulous cry, a shrill note, which was sometimes prolonged so as to resemble the stridulation of a grasshopper. The sloth was of the kind called by Cuvier Bradypus tridactylus, which is clothed with shaggy gray hair. The natives call it, in the Tupí language, Aï ybyreté (in Portuguese, Preguiça da terra firme), or sloth of the mainland, to distinguish it from the Bradypus infuscatus, which has a long, black and tawny stripe between the shoulders, and is called Aï Ygapó (Preguiça das vargens), or sloth of the flooded lands. Some travellers in South America have described the sloth as very nimble in its native woods, and have disputed the justness of the name which has been bestowed on it. The inhabitants of the Amazons region, however, both Indians and descendants of the Portuguese, hold to the common opinion, and consider the sloth as the type of laziness. It is very common for one native to call another, in reproaching him for idleness, "bicho do Embaüba" (beast of the Cecropia tree); the leaves of the Cecropia being the food of the sloth. It is a strange sight to watch the uncouth creature, fit production of these silent shades, lazily moving from branch to branch. Every movement betrays, not indolence exactly, but extreme caution. He never looses his hold from one branch without first securing himself to the next, and when he does not immediately find a bough to grasp with the rigid hooks into which his paws are so curiously transformed, he raises his body, supported on his hind legs, and claws around in search of a fresh foothold. After watching the animal for about half an hour I gave him a charge of shot; he fell with a terrific crash, but caught a bough, in his descent, with his powerful claws, and remained suspended. Our Indian lad tried to climb the tree, but was driven back by swarms of stinging ants; the poor little fellow slid down in a sad predicament, and plunged into the brook to free himself. Two days afterwards I found the body of the sloth on the ground: the animal having dropped on the relaxation of the muscles a few hours after death. In one of our voyages, Mr. Wallace and I saw a sloth (B. infuscatus) swimming across a river, at a place where it was probably 300 yards broad. I believe it is not generally known that this animal takes to the water. Our men caught the beast, cooked, and ate him.

In returning from these trips we were sometimes benighted on the campos. We did not care for this on moonlit nights, when there was no danger of losing the path. The great heat felt in the middle hours of the day is much mitigated by four o'clock in the afternoon; a few birds then make their appearance; small flocks of ground doves run about the stony hillocks; parrots pass over and sometimes settle in the ilhas; pretty little finches of several species, especially one kind, streaked with olive-brown and yellow, and somewhat resembling our yellow-hammer, but I believe not belonging to the same genus, hop about the grass, enlivening the place with a few musical notes. The Carashúe (Mimus) also then resumes its mellow, blackbird-like song; and two or three species of humming-bird, none of which however are peculiar to the district, flit about from tree to tree. On the other hand, the little blue and yellow-striped lizards, which abound amongst the herbage during the scorching heats of midday, retreat towards this hour to their hiding-places; together with the day-flying insects and the numerous campo butterflies. Some of these latter resemble greatly our English species found in heathy places, namely, a fritillary, Argynnis (Euptoieta) Hegesia, and two smaller kinds, which are deceptively like the little Nemeobius Lucina. After sunset the air becomes delightfully cool and fragrant with fruits and flowers. The nocturnal animals then come forth. A monstrous hairy spider, five inches in expanse (Mygale Blondii), of a brown colour with yellowish lines along its stout legs—which is very common here, inhabiting broad tubular galleries smoothly lined with silken web—may be then caught on the watch at the mouth of its burrow. It is only seen at night, and I think does not wander far from its den; the gallery is about two inches in diameter, and runs in a slanting direction, about two feet from the surface of the soil. As soon as it is night, swarms of goatsuckers suddenly make their appearance, wheeling about in a noiseless, ghostly manner, in chase of night-flying insects. They sometimes descend and settle on a low branch, or even on the pathway close to where one is walking, and then squatting down on their heels, are difficult to distinguish from the surrounding soil. One kind (Hydropsalis psalidurus?) has a long forked tail. In the daytime they are concealed in the wooded ilhas, where I very often saw them crouched and sleeping on the ground in the dense shade. They make no nest, but lay their eggs on the bare ground. Their breeding time is in the rainy season, and fresh eggs are found from December to June. Birds have not one uniform time for nidification here, as in temperate latitudes. Gulls and plovers lay in September, when the sand-banks are exposed in midriver in the dry season. Later in the evening, the singular notes of the goatsuckers are heard, one species crying Quao, Quao, another Chuck-co-co-cao; and these are repeated at intervals far into the night in the most monotonous manner. A great number of toads are seen on the bare sandy pathways soon after sunset. One of them was quite a colossus, about seven inches in length and three in height. This big fellow would never move out of the way until we were close to him. If we jerked him out of the path with a stick, he would slowly recover himself, and then turn round to have a good impudent stare. I have counted as many as thirty of these monsters within a distance of half a mile.

The surface of the campos is disfigured in all directions by earthy mounds and conical hillocks, the work of many different species of white ants. Some of these structures are five feet high, and formed of particles of earth worked into a material as hard as stone; others are smaller, and constructed in a looser manner. The ground is everywhere streaked with the narrow covered galleries which are built up by the insects of grains of earth different in colour from the surrounding soil, to protect themselves whilst conveying materials wherewith to build their cities—for such the tumuli may be considered—or carrying their young from one hillock to another. The same covered ways are spread over all the dead timber, and about the decaying roots of herbage, which serve as food to the white ants. An examination of these tubular passages or arcades in any part of the district, or a peep into one of the tumuli, reveals always a throng of eager, busy creatures. I became very much interested in these insects while staying at Santarem, where many circumstances favoured the study of their habits, and examined several hundred colonies in endeavouring to clear up obscure points in their natural history. Very little, up to that date, had been recorded of the constitution and economy of their communities, owing doubtless to their not being found in northern and central Europe, and, therefore, not within reach of European observers. I will give a short summary of my observations, and with this we shall have done with Santarem and its neighbourhood.^[3]

White ants are small, pale-coloured, soft-bodied insects, having scarcely anything in common with true ants, except their consisting, in each species and family, of several distinct orders of individuals or castes which live together in populous, organized communities. In both there are, besides the males and females, a set of individuals of no fully-developed sex, immensely more numerous than their brothers and sisters, whose task is to work and care for the young brood. In true ants this class of the community consists of undeveloped females, and when it comprises, as is the case in many species, individuals of different structure, the functions of these do not seem to be rigidly defined. The contrary happens in the Termites, and this perhaps shows that the organization of their communities has reached a higher stage, the division of labour being more complete. The neuters in these wonderful insects are always divided into two classes—fighters and workers; both are blind, and each keeps to its own task; the one to build, make covered roads, nurse the young brood from the egg upwards, take care of the king and queen, who are the progenitors of the whole colony, and secure the exit of the males and females, when they acquire wings and fly out to pair and disseminate the race: the other to defend the community against all comers. Ants and termites are also widely different in their mode of growth, or, as it is called, metamorphosis. Ants in their early stage are footless grubs, which, before they reach the adult state, pass through an intermediate quiescent stage (pupa) inclosed in a membrane. Termites, on the contrary, have a similar form when they emerge from the egg to that which they retain throughout life; the chief difference being the gradual acquisition of eyes and wings in the sexual individuals during the later stages of growth. Termites and true ants, in fact, belong to two widely dissimilar orders of insects, and the analogy between them is only a general one of habits. The mode of growth of Termites and the active condition of their younger stages (larva and pupa) make the constitution of their communities much more difficult of comprehension than that of ants; hence how many castes existed, and what sort of individuals they were composed of, if not males and females, have always been puzzles to naturalists in the absence of direct observation.

What a strange spectacle is offered to us in the organisation of these insect communities! Nothing analogous occurs amongst the higher animals. Social instincts exist in many species of mammals and birds, where numerous individuals unite to build common habitations, as we see in the case of weaver-birds and beavers; but the principle of division of labour, the setting apart of classes of individuals for certain employments, occurs only in human societies in an advanced state of civilisation. In all the higher animals there are only two orders of individuals as far as bodily structure is concerned, namely, males and females. The wonderful part in the history of the Termites is, that not only is there a rigid division of labour, but nature has given to each class a structure of body adapting it to the kind of labour it has to perform. The males and females form a class apart; they do no kind of work, but in the course of growth acquire wings to enable them to issue forth and disseminate their kind. The workers and soldiers are wingless, and differ solely in the shape and armature of the head. This member in the labourers is smooth and rounded, the mouth being adapted for the working of the materials in building the hive; in the soldiers the head is of very large size, and is provided in almost every kind with special organs of offence or defence in the form of horny processes resembling pikes, tridents, and so forth. Some species do not possess these extraordinary projections, but have, in compensation, greatly lengthened jaws, which are shaped in some kinds as sickles, in others as sabres and saws.

The course of human events in our day seems, unhappily, to make it more than ever necessary for the citizens of civilised and industrious communities to set apart a numerous armed class for the protection of the rest; in this nations only do what nature has of old done for the Termites. The soldier Termes, however, has not only the fighting instinct and function; he is constructed as a soldier, and carries his weapons not in his hand, but growing out of his body.

Whenever a colony of Termites is disturbed, the workers are at first the only members of the community seen; these quickly disappear through the endless ramified galleries of which a Termitarium is composed, and soldiers make their appearance. The observations of Smeathman on the soldiers of a species inhabiting tropical Africa are often quoted in books on Natural History, and give a very good idea of their habits. I was always amused at the pugnacity displayed, when, in making a hole in the earthy cemented archway of their covered roads, a host of these little fellows mounted the breach to cover the retreat of the workers. The edges of the rupture bristled with their armed heads as the courageous warriors ranged themselves in compact line around them.

1—8. Soldiers of different species of White Ants.—9. Ordinary shape of worker.—10. Winged class.

They attacked fiercely any intruding object, and as fast as their front ranks were destroyed, others filled up their places. When the jaws closed in the flesh, they suffered themselves to be torn in pieces rather than loosen their hold. It might be said that this instinct is rather a cause of their ruin than a protection when a colony is attacked by the well-known enemy of Termites, the ant-bear; but it is the soldiers only which attach themselves to the long worm-like tongue of this animal, and the workers, on whom the prosperity of the young brood immediately depends, are left for the most part unharmed. I always found, on thrusting my finger into a mixed crowd of Termites, that the soldiers only fastened upon it. Thus the fighting caste do in the end serve to protect the species by sacrificing themselves for its good.

A family of Termites consists of workers as the majority, of soldiers, and of the King and Queen. These are the constant occupants of a completed Termitarium. The royal couple are the father and mother of the colony, and are always kept together closely guarded by a detachment of workers in a large chamber in the very heart of the hive, surrounded by much stronger walls than the other cells. They are wingless and both immensely larger than the workers and soldiers. The Queen, when in her chamber, is always found in a gravid condition, her abdomen enormously distended with eggs, which, as fast as they come forth, are conveyed by a relay of workers in their mouths from the royal chamber to the minor cells dispersed throughout the hive. The other members of a Termes family are the winged individuals: these make their appearance only at a certain time of the year, generally in the beginning of the rainy season. It has puzzled naturalists to make out the relationship between the winged Termites and the wingless King and Queen. It has also generally been thought that the soldiers and workers are the larvæ of the others; an excusable mistake, seeing that they much resemble larvæ. I satisfied myself, after studying the habits of these insects daily for several months, that the winged Termites were males and females in about equal numbers, and that some of them, after shedding their wings and pairing, became Kings and Queens of new colonies; also, that the soldiers and workers were individuals which had arrived at their full growth without passing through the same stages as their fertile brothers and sisters.

A Termitarium, although of different shape, size, texture of materials, and built in different situations, according to the species, is always composed of a vast number of chambers and irregular intercommunicating galleries, built up with particles of earth or vegetable matter, cemented together by the saliva of the insects. There is no visible mode of ingress or egress, the entrances being connected with covered roads, which are the sole means of communication with the outer world. The structures are prominent objects in all tropical countries. The very large hillocks at Santarem are the work of many distinct species, each of which uses materials differently compacted, and keeps to its own portion of the tumulus. One kind, Termes arenarius, on which these remarks are chiefly founded, makes little conical hillocks of friable structure, a foot or two in height, and is generally the sole occupier. Another kind (Termes exiguus) builds small dome-shaped papery edifices. Many species live on trees, their earthy nests, of all sizes, looking like ugly excrescences on the trunks and branches. Some are wholly subterranean, and others live under the bark, or in the interior of trees: it is these two latter kinds which get into houses and destroy furniture, books, and clothing. All hives do not contain a queen and her partner. Some are new constructions, and, when taken to pieces, show only a large number of workers occupied in bringing eggs from an old overstocked Termitarium, with a small detachment of soldiers evidently told off for their protection.

A few weeks before the exodus of the winged males and females a completed Termitarium contains Termites of all castes and in all stages of development. On close examination I found the young of each of the four orders of individuals crowded together, and apparently feeding in the same cells. The full-grown workers showed the greatest attention to the young larvæ, carrying them in their mouths along the galleries from one cell to another, but they took no notice of the full-grown ones. It was not possible to distinguish the larvæ of the four classes when extremely young, but at an advanced stage it was easy to see which were to become males and females, and which workers and soldiers. The workers have the same form throughout, the soldiers showed in their later stages of growth the large head and cephalic processes, but much less developed than in the adult state. The males and females were distinguishable by the possession of rudimentary wings and eyes, which increased in size after three successive changes of skin.

Thus I think I made out that the soldier and worker castes are, like the males and females, distinct from the egg; they are not made so by a difference of food or treatment during their earlier stages, and they never become winged insects. The workers and soldiers feed on decayed wood and other vegetable substances; I could not clearly ascertain what the young fed upon, but they are seen of all sizes, larvæ and pupæ, huddled together in the same cells, with their heads converging towards the bottom, and I thought I sometimes detected the workers discharging a liquid from their mouths into the cells. The growth of the young family is very rapid, and seems to be completed within the year: the greatest event of Termite life then takes place, namely, the coming of age of the winged males and females, and their exit from the hive.

It is curious to watch a Termitarium when this exodus is taking place. The workers are set in the greatest activity, as if they were aware that the very existence of their species depended on the successful emigration and marriages of their brothers and sisters. They clear the way for their bulky but fragile bodies, and bite holes through the outer walls for their escape. The exodus is not completed in one day, but continues until all the males and females have emerged from their pupa integuments, and flown away. It takes place on moist, close evenings, or on cloudy mornings: they are much attracted by the lights in houses, and fly by myriads into chambers, filling the air with a loud rustling noise, and often falling in such numbers that they extinguish the lamps. Almost as soon as they touch ground they wriggle off their wings, to aid which operation there is a special provision in the structure of the organs, a seam running across near their roots and dividing the horny nervures. To prove that this singular mutilation was voluntary, on the part of the insects, I repeatedly tried to detach the wings by force, but could never succeed whilst they were fresh, for they always tore out by the roots. Few escape the innumerable enemies which are on the alert at these times to devour them; ants, spiders, lizards, toads, bats, and goat-suckers. The waste of life is astonishing. The few that do survive pair and become the kings and queens of new colonies. I ascertained this by finding single pairs a few days after the exodus, which I always examined and proved to be males and females, established under a leaf, a clod of earth, or wandering about under the edges of new tumuli. The females are then not gravid. I once found a newly-married pair in a fresh cell tended by a few workers.

The office of Termites in these hot countries is to hasten the decomposition of the woody and decaying parts of vegetation. In this they perform what in temperate latitudes is the task of other orders of insects. Many points in their natural history still remain obscure. We have seen that there are males and females, which grow, reach the adult winged state, and propagate their kind like all other insects. Unlike others, however, which are always, each in its sphere, provided with the means of maintaining their own in the battle of life, these are helpless creatures, which, without external aid, would soon perish, entailing the extinction of their kind. The family to which they belong is therefore provided with other members, not males or females, but individuals deprived of the sexual instincts, and so endowed in body and mind that they are adapted and impelled to devote their lives for the good of their species. But I have not explained how these neuter individuals, soldiers and workers, come to be distinct castes. This is still a knotty point, which I could do nothing to solve. Neuter bees and ants are known to be undeveloped females. I thought it a reasonable hypothesis, on account of the total absence of intermediate individuals connecting the two forms, that worker and soldier might be in a similar way female and male whose development had been in some way arrested. A French anatomist, however, M. Lespés,^[4] believes to have found by dissection imperfect males and females in each of the castes. The correctness of his observations is doubted by competent judges;^[5] if his conclusion be true, the biology of Termites is indeed a mystery.

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1. The water-beetles found in the pools belonged to seventeen genera, thirteen of which are European . Those European genera which form the greater part of the pond population in Coleoptera in northern latitudes, are quite absent in the Amazons region: these are, Haliplus, Cnemidotus, Pelobius, Noterus, Hybius, Agabus, Colymbetes, Dyticus, and Acilius: Hydropori, also, are very rare. The most common species belong to the genera Hydracanthus, Copelatus, Cybister, Tropisternus, and Berosus, three of which are unknown in Europe.
2. These are Melissa, Mesocheira, Thalestria, &c.
3. My original notes on the Termites, comprising all details, were sent to Professor Westwood (Oxford) in 1854 and 1855; they were not printed in England, but have been translated into German, and published by Dr. Hagen, with his monograph of the family, in the Linnæa Entomologica, 12 Band, Stettin, 1858, p. 207, ff.
4. Recherches sur l'Organization et les Mœurs du Termite Lucifuge, Annales des Sciences Naturelles, 4^me série, tome 5, fasc. 4 et 5. Paris, 1856. M. Lespés states also to have found two distinct forms of pupa in the same species, one only of which he believes to become kings and queens. I observed nothing of the kind in Termes arenarius. Dr. Hagen mentions, in his monograph, cases of beaked workers and winged soldiers. I always found the beaked individuals to be of the fighting caste; with regard to winged soldiers and other curious forms of pupæ which have occurred, they are probably either monstrosities, or belong to species having a peculiar mode of development. I did not meet with such; I found, however, a species whose soldier class did not differ at all, except in the fighting instinct, from the workers.
5. Gerstaecker, Bericht über den Leistungen, &c., der Entomologie, 1856. p. 6. Hagen, Linnæa Entomologica, 1858, p. 24.