A NATURALIST IN BRAZIL 



One of the most conspicuous birds in the bush is the httle brown 

 Ferreiro or "Smith," who might more justly be called the "Scissors- 

 grinder" (Plate 28). On every side one hears the sharp zip, zip, zip, 

 Zerrip, zerrip, rhythmical and penetrating, as though someone was 

 grinding a pair of scissors in ever-increasing haste. And on almost 

 every tenth tree hangs the great thorny bundle of twigs in whose 

 interior the nest is concealed, and which no enemy can tear asunder 

 (Plate 21). I shall have something more to say of this bird, which is 

 found in all parts of Brazil, 



From the sand rise the little craters of the Leafcutting Ants. 

 These fine yellow-brown insects go hurrying in all directions, while 

 their soldiers watch the entrance to the nest. Green-striped sand-bees 

 are popping in and out of other little holes. Round the trees circle 

 the great black Sand-wasps, or Hornets, their hind legs outstretched 

 behind them. There are black bees too, which make themselves 

 nests of mud in the middle of a bush, and of which it is wise to beware. 

 From time to time one passes a cicada; its shrill, piping song befits 

 the remoteness of the desert. 



So for hours at a stretch one trudges through the hot sand, while 

 the sun blazes down from the blue sky; far and wide the dazzling 

 landscape lies outspread, and all is bathed in a hot fragrance, the 

 mingled exhalations of aromatic herbs and withering leaves and 

 burning sand. This heavy fragrance follows the visitor to the Sertao 

 night and day, and never leaves him ; it was this above all that made 

 me long more acutely day by day to return to the green country 

 by the sea. 



Often a mighty wall of gigantic blocks of rock towered up before 

 me, and from top to bottom the chinks were full of cacti of every 

 kind, so that it looked as if someone had made a great artificial 

 rock-garden. Here, overtopping the other trees, was the Candelabra 

 Cactus or Facheiro (Plate 21), from whose sturdy stem a whole 

 number of pillar-like branches projected, bending upwards near the 

 stem to assume the perpendicular. Another kind of "pillared cactus," 

 which the Brazilians call the Chique-chique, divides into branches 

 on the ground, from which the short columns rise perpendicularly. 

 It was this cactus that tore my trousers with its spines when I tried 

 to force my way through it. A third species is the Fig Cactus (Plate 

 20), in which the stem and branches divide themselves into mere 

 flat, club-shaped segments, forming bush-like masses of articulations. 

 This cactus blooms in August; the flowers are orange. Lastly, the 

 stone-heaps are covered with the oval or spherical Melocacti, which 



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