64 To the River Plate and Back 



assembled guests, and immediately found them all to 

 be most kindly interested in my entomological pursuits. 

 One lady came to me and informed me that if I would 

 go to one of the upper corridors I would find a large 

 moth resting in a corner where she had observed it 

 before coming down to dinner. Two little misses 

 tripped up to me and told me that I must go to the big 

 electric lamp at the corner of the hotel, where I would 

 find a half-dozen moths resting on the wall. The 

 manager and the waiters came to my assistance and 

 informed me of discoveries which they had made, and 

 from nine until eleven o'clock I worked industriously, 

 accumulating a large number of specimens of beautiful 

 tropical lepidoptera, which it took me until midnight 

 to put into papers for safe-keeping. It certainly was 

 for a veteran entomologist an evening of unalloyed 

 pleasure. And like it were all the evenings of my brief 

 stay in this interesting spot. 



On the morning of the next day when I awoke after 

 a refreshing sleep I lay for a few moments gazing out of 

 the tall windows, which reached from the floor to the 

 ceiling. In the far distance I heard the tooting of 

 locomotives and the deep growl of a big steamer 

 signaling her departure; near at hand I heard the 

 twittering of sparrows about the eaves, the sharp 

 eager notes of swallows circling through the air, the 

 call of the Bienteveo, and the warbling of a thrush. 

 Light fleecy clouds were hovering about the wooded 

 peaks. I sprang up and looked down with delight upon 

 the world robed in green. It was Amerigo Vespucci 

 who said that " if Paradise exists on this planet it must 

 be near the Brazilian coasts." Of all that coast the 

 most beautiful portion lies around the great estuary on 

 which Rio de Janeiro stands. 



