On Brazil Kitchen Middens, Habits of Ants etc. 1 ). 



[Letter to Mr. Darwin.] 



My dear Sir, - In Desterro I met with two young men (M. Charles Wiener, 

 of Paris, and M. Carl Schreiner, from the National Museum of Rio) who, by order 

 of the Brazilian Government, were examining the "Sambaquis" of our province. 

 I accompanied them in some of their excursions. These "Sambaquis", or "Cas- 

 queiros", are hillocks of shells accumulated by -the former inhabitants of our coast ; 

 they exist in great number, and some of them are now to be found at a distance 

 of several miles from the sea-shore, though originally they were, of course, built 

 near the spot where the shells lived. Some are of considerable size; we were 

 told that a Sambaqui on a little island near San Francisco had a height of about 

 100 metres; but the largest I have seen myself did not exceed 10 or 12 metres. 

 As to the shells of which they are composed, the Sambaquis may be divided 

 into three classes, viz.: (i) Sambaquis, consisting of many different species of 

 bivalve and univalve shells (Venus, Cardium, Lucina Area, Ostrea, Purpura, Trito- 

 nium, Trochus etc.), all of which are at present living in the neighbouring sea. 

 (2) Sambaquis, consisting almost exclusively of a small bivalve shell, the "Birbigas" 

 of the Brazilians ( Venus flexuosa ?), exceedingly common in shallow bays or salt- 

 water lagoas, the bottom of which is of mixed mud and sand. (3) Sambaquis, 

 consisting exclusively of a species of Corbula, which I have not yet seen in a living 

 state; all the Brazilians also, whom I asked, and who are perfectly acquainted with 

 any edible animal of their marine fauna, are unanimous in affirming that this shell 

 does not live now on our coast. From one of these Corbula-Sambaquis I obtained 

 a specimen of a small Melampus, which I have found living near the mouth of 

 some rivulets, where fresh and salt water are mingling in ever-varying proportions. 

 When the lowlands of the lower Itajahy and some of its tributaries were as 

 yet beneath the level of the sea, they would have formed a large estuary, and 

 here probably the Corbulae lived. The fragments of human skulls which we 

 found in one of these Corbula-Sambaquis were of truly astonishing thickness, 

 whereas those I have seen from other Sombaquis are hardly thicker than our 

 own. Among the tools which are to be found in the Sambaquis, stone-axes are 

 by far the most frequent. But as M. Wiener will probably soon publish a full 

 account of his researches, I will now no longer dwell on this subject. 



i) Nature vol. XIII. 1876. p. 304. 305. 



