Indian name); they fill up the entrance to their nest with resin (which is very pure, and is used for violins) at the beginning of the winter, when they shut themselves up and eat the honey. The resin is to prevent woodpeckers. and other birds getting into the nest.

I am now cutting my way through mata virgem, or virgin forest, a mere trifle compared with those on the coast and nearer the equator, but still beautiful. Our chief, however, is never tired of speaking of the really grand and immense forests of Spanish Honduras, which, he says, is the most splendid place in the world. But I will briefly describe my woods. Last night (September 26) we arrived at the banks of the Rio Camapuão, and we shall go along this valley until we nearly reach Brumado. The stream which we have been following from the divide, during its passage through an increasingly narrowing gorge with steep forest-covered sides, at length reaches a fine cascade, the water falling some sixty feet over the bare rocks into a clear, deep pool at their base. The stream then enters the valley of the Camapuão, and shortly empties itself into that river; the valley at that part is broad, flat, and marshy, with a few scattered patches of capoeira and shrubs. I crossed the Camapuão at a point where its broad valley narrows into a gorge. The river there is some fifty feet wide, and shallow, with an even and gentle fall. On one side is a steep bank some thirty feet high, covered with forest, beyond which is campo, or grass down; and on the other side, a broad belt of bamboo jungle, covered with water in the flood season. Beyond this jungle rises a hill some five or six hundred feet high, hidden in virgin forest, from which are heard the distant chatter of monkeys, the melancholy caw-caw of toucans, and the singing of a thousand birds. The river-bank is fringed with trees, some of which

are a mass of white, yellow, violet, or dark-blue flowers, beautiful leguminosæ (Inga and Mimosa), with pink cistuslike blossoms-trees with fresh young leaves and flower-buds just bursting in the early spring, sweet daphne and wild orange, good timber for ornamental purposes (as I found by cutting it down), the "sucupira" rather resembling rosewood, “camará," a pinkish white wood, and “salgueira,” a deep red colour.* There are also tall slim trees, with leaves some eighteen inches long by six wide, of a deep chocolate colour on the under side, and two extra ribs along the edge of the leaf (Melastomacea); bignonias in flower, orchids, and other parasites; tree-ferns besides many other ferns, and creepers innumerable. One creeper was very pretty, having pale green leaves and countless clusters of exquisite light pink flowers, in size and shape similar to an azalea (Jacaranda tomentosa). Some of the Ilianas are fine stemmed, like a thread of green cotton; others like hanging masses of twisted rope, tough, yet pliant. You have the ceaseless hum of a hundred bloodthirsty diptera and of cicadas, with notes from the shrillest pitch to the deepest bass. A few sober-coloured brown, grey, or white butterflies (Euptychia, Taygetis, Leucidia, Eurema, etc.) and small moths skip and flit between the trees and undergrowth, while occasionally a brilliant Morpho floats lazily

* I copy from a (MS.) "Catalogue of the Woods of Brazil, arranged alphabetically after their vernacular names," etc., John Miers, F.R.S., which is in the Botanical Library at the British Museum, South Kensington.

Sucupira.

Sicuper assú (grand S.) 22 m. hauteur, 8 centim. diam.

violet grisâtre faible à travailler.

Sicupera mirim (petit S.) 22 m. hauteur, 10 centim. diam.

plus dur que le precedent."

(From list of woods sent to France by the Comte Gesta.)

Camará, Acrodiclidium Gardneri.

Salgueiro, from Rio São Francisco, a strong hard wood, useful in the construction of large boats (Burton, vol. ii. p. 381).

along, and a strong-winged Papilio or gay Callidryas rushes past with rapid flight. Then under one's feet is a carpet of dry leaves, among which creep countless ants-red, yellow and black; all sizes, from the smallest, almost invisible, to savage-looking hairy, golden, or red and black creatures, half an inch long. Such is a faint picture of my surroundings to-day.

A few days ago Vicente shot a large lizard or “lagarto ; it was three feet eight inches long, and was killed while lying asleep basking in the sun beside a small pond near our camp. We skinned and cooked it according to a recipe contained in a book I bought when at Rio de Janeiro, called "Cozinheiro Nacional," or National Cookery, and which gives directions how to prepare and cook the onça, paca, monkey, capivara, snakes, frogs, armadillos, toucans, and countless other birds, snails, ants, and, in fact, everything imaginable. The result of the experiment with the lizard was most satisfactory, the flesh being a delicate white, and most delicious, rather similar to pork in flavour, with a dash of the richness of a mackerel without the fishy taste. We have also been eating tatus (armadillos), and a paca which we caught lately. When I was returning the other evening, wading down the river, a paca came off from one bank and dived into the water to swim across. One of my men hit it with his fauce (billhook), slicing half its head off. We prepared him first by scalding and scraping the hair off, when he looked just like a sucking pig; the next day we had him roasted on a spit. The crackling and the fine white flesh were excellent.

I am always getting little offerings from the natives. To-day I received a bottle of laranginha, a bottle of milk, some tobacco, and some oranges; all from different people.

I can now no longer sleep on the ground, owing to the rain and the insects, so sent into Brumado to try and get a hammock. Senhor João Baptista sent me a very nice one, as a present. It is made of the fibre of a kind of palm called burity, and is very strong.

October 3.—To-day I worked through a swamp-grand for a naturalist, obnoxious to an engineer-with dense masses of ferns now unfurling their new fronds of all colours, from light red to brownish or green, a luxuriance of treeferns with leaves six to eight feet long, and shrubs bearing the most fragrant white flowers, while Morphos (M. Achillana) and Heliconius were abundant.

Having read in my cookery book a recipe for fried 'tanajuras," a kind of ant, I was most anxious to come across this insect and try the dish. On September 30, there was a great swarm of them flying about our camp. They are very formidable-looking creatures, not unlike a hornet, only entirely brown, three inches across the wing, and over an inch long. Having taken sufficient for my collection, I then set to work to capture them for food, in my butterfly net. In a few minutes I had over a hundred, and then followed the recipe in the book, which says, “ Take a number of tanajuras and scald them in boiling water, then pull off the abdomens, which are to be fried in fat, sprinkling them with salt and pepper. When they are well cooked, serve them as a surprise dish. In taste they resemble prawns." The females only are used, as they are full of eggs. I confess I tried my first tanajura with much delicacy, but, finding it excellent, ate half a dozen, and finally finished the whole lot.

I must next tell you something more interesting about them, as, being Sunday, I had leisure to watch. I noticed nothing remarkable about the males, but observed the

females carefully. They fly about rapidly, and finally settle on the ground; then, in less time than it takes me to write it, they lift up the centre leg and break off their wings, first on one side, then on the other; after this they crawl about, seeking a spot to burrow in-they sometimes wander backwards and forwards for a quarter of an hour before deciding. When settled, they cut away the grass all round, carefully removing it, and then begin to dig out the earth with their jaws. When an ant had thus settled, supporting itself sometimes on two hind legs, sometimes on four, and excavating with its mandibles, the fore legs kneaded the earth into pellets, or else scraped out the powdery dust. When it had formed a pellet, it always backed out of its burrow with the lump of earth in its jaws, and then, turning round, deposited it about two inches from the burrow on the down side of the hill, so that the rain could not wash it back again. The insects dug some four or five inches deep in every case. This is the extent of my observations, but I am told that if you dig in January, you will find her in the burrow surrounded by her young progeny.

The same evening I had another display of interest, this time inanimate nature. We had a superb sunset; the sun sank just before six, and then, from a wondrous golden horizon, rays of bright crimson darted forth into the pale blue sky overhead, lighting up the sides of our forest-clad clough, which runs E.N.E. into the broad fertile valley of the Rio Camapuão, with a warm glow, the profile of the high ground on the other side of the valley fading into the outlines of the successive ranges of gently undulating hills of a deep purple, the furthest group standing in bold relief against the golden sky. Turning round, we saw the forest, the red soil, the tufted grass, and bushes all lit up