236 A JOURNEY IN BRAZIL. 
many paths in the forest, and accompanies me in all my 
botanizing excursions ; with the keen perceptions of a 
person whose only training has been through the senses, 
she is far quicker than I am in discerning the smallest 
plant in fruit or flower, and now that she knows what I 
am seeking, she is a very efficient aid. Nimble as a monkey, 
she thinks nothing of climbing to the top of a tree to bring 
down a blossoming branch ; and here, where many of the 
trees shoot up to quite a height before putting out their 
boughs, such an auxiliary is very important. The collec- 
tions go on apace, and every day brings in new species ; 
more than can be easily cared for, far more than our artist 
can find time to draw. Yesterday, among other specimens, 
a hollow log was brought in, some two feet and a half in 
length, and about three inches in diameter, crowded with 

Anojas (a common fish here) of all sizes, from those 
several inches long to the tiniest young. The thing was 
so extraordinary that one would have been inclined tc 
think it was prepared in order to be passed off as a curi- 
osity, had not the fish been so dexterously packed into 
the log from end to end, that it was impossible to get them 
out without splitting it open, when they were all found 
alive and in perfectly good condition. They could not 
have been artificially jammed into the hollow wood, in 
that way, without injuring them. The fishermen say that 
this is the habit of the family ; they are often found thus 
crowded into dead logs at the bottom of the river, making 
. ~ o 
their nests as it were in the cavities of the wood.* 
October ~L4th. Mr. Agassiz has a corps of little boys 
* This species belongs to one of the subdivisions of the genus Auchenipte- 
rus ; it is undescribed, and Mr. Burkhardt has made five colored sketches of a 
number of specimens of different sizes, varying in their markings. L. A. 
