170 Journal of Travel and Natural History 



forests (the jaguar) : even those T had brought from the coast, and which I am 

 certain had never been exposed to the attacks of these animals, foUov^'cd the 

 example of the others, p. 298. 



Owing to its being the rainy season Clark did not find aninaal 

 life in Brazil so abundant as he expected : 



"Wild animals are rare about here ; tapirs are to be found in some of the 

 hills, and we are exhorted to have a day after them. Birds are rare, at least 

 large birds ; I can see none that I know of by pictures or collections : humming 

 birds are more abundant, of all hues, and brilliant like precious gems : spiders 

 and beetles, too, want looking for, but their absence is accounted for by the ex- 

 cessive rain." p. 120. 



There is another and a truer reason which he hits upon after- 

 wards : — '- 



"I have had one or two expeditions lately into the virgin forests : they are 

 not the places, as a rule, for entomologists, insects congregate rather on the 

 outsides, in the clearings, or by the sides of paths, or anywhere where they can 

 get air and sunshine ; but the forests are worth seeing over and over again, if 

 not for their insects at all events for themselves. They impress one with the 

 sense of vastness and silence and solemnity, and teach me (as I can conceive 

 nothing else could teach except, perhaps, a bed of sea-weed on a tropical shore) 

 the marvellous exuberance of nature's powers ; ferns and mosses intertwined 

 with parasitical orchids, giant trees, climbing plants, each or many with their 

 special flowers, darken the air that they perfume : the air is full of life : you can 

 hear but you can see nothing. / suspect there is a great world of insects high up 

 above in the thick bushy tops of t lie trees that can bask in the sunlight." 



Wc know that there is : Mr Fry, the eminent Brazilian ento- 

 mologist, has told us that many insects are never taken except 

 high up the trees, and that the only means by which he could pro- 

 cure them was by nets fastened to the end of excessively long 

 poles. 



"You have the deep distant hum as of thousands of insects, occasionally the 

 note of a bird, sometimes, perhaps, the fall of a branch, or it may be a strange 

 sound that is inexplicable, but nothing can you see but the vegetable world, and 

 this arrests the whole of you ; sight and smell as well as hearing make you 

 pause with charmed surprise at every step : always there is something to wonder 

 at or to examine." 



The following is an interesting statement relating to the distri- 

 bution of life in different parts of the globe : 



"That which is most remarkable in the general character of the coleoptera is 

 the wonderful exuberance of species and the real scarcity of individuals ; most 

 of our species are represented only by a single specimen. We go out three or 

 four days consecutively along the same walk, visit the same shrubs and trees, 

 and yet each day's captures are different from the preceding. We both walk 



