184 A JOURNEY IN BRAZIL. 
During our absence the commander of our steamer, 
Captain Anacleto, and one or two gentlemen of the town, 
among others Senhor Augustinho, and also Father Torquato, 
whose name occurs often in Bates's work on the Amazons, 
have been making a collection of river fishes, in which Mr. 
Agassiz finds some fifty new species. Thus the harvest of 
the week has been a rich one. To-day we are on our way 
to Manaos, where we expect to arrive in the course of to- 
morrow. 
yet their great variety astonished me, and still more was I struck by their 
resemblance to Melanura, Umbra, and the Erythrinoids. The presence of 
Belone and allied forms also surprised me. Our stay on the shores of Jose 
Assu and Lago Maximo was particularly instructive on account of the nu- 
merous specimens of each species daily brought in by Laudigari and Maia. 
It afforded me a welcome opportunity for studying the differences exhibited 
by these fishes at different periods of life. No type passes, in that respect, 
through greater changes than the Chromides, and among them the genus 
Cychla is perhaps the most variable. I am sure that no ichthyologist could 
at first sight believe that their young are really the early stage of the forms 
known in our ichthyological works as Cychla monocolus, Cychla tcmensis, and 
Cychla saxatilis. The males and females also vary greatly during the spawning 
season, and the hump on the top of the head described as a specific character 
in Cychla nigro-maculata is a protuberance only found in the male, swelling 
during the period of spawning and soon disappearing. Once familiar with the 
young brood of some species of Chromides, it became easy for me to distinguish 
a great variety of small types, no doubt hitherto overlooked by naturalists trav- 
elling in this region, simply under the impression that they must be the young 
of larger species. A similar investigation of the young of Serrasalmo, 
Mylctes, Tetragonopterus, Cynodon, Anodus, &c. led me to the discovery 
of an equally large number of diminutive types of Characines, many of which, 
when full grown, do not exceed one inch in length ; among them are some of 
the most beautiful fishes I have ever seen, so far as the brilliancy and variety 
of their colors are concerned. Thus everything contributed to swell the collec- 
tions, the localities selected as well as the mode of investigating. I should 
add here, that, several years before my own journey on the Amazons, I had 
been indebted to the Rev. Mr. Fletcher for a valuable collection of fishes from 
this and other Amazonian localities. The familiarity thus obtained with them 
was very useful to me in pursuing my studies on the spot. L. A. 
